Orhan's Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian
by
Natasa Djordjevic
- 6:37 AM
Synopsis:
When Orhan’s brilliant and eccentric grandfather Kemal—a man who built a dynasty out of making kilim rugs—is found dead, submerged in a vat of dye, Orhan inherits the decades-old business. But Kemal’s will raises more questions than it answers. He has left the family estate to a stranger thousands of miles away, an aging woman in an Armenian retirement home in Los Angeles. Her existence and secrecy about her past only deepen the mystery of why Orhan’s grandfather willed his home in Turkey to an unknown woman rather than to his own son or grandson.
Left with only Kemal’s ancient sketchbook and intent on righting this injustice, Orhan boards a plane to Los Angeles. There he will not only unearth the story that eighty-seven-year-old Seda so closely guards but discover that Seda’s past now threatens to unravel his future. Her story, if told, has the power to undo the legacy upon which his family has been built.
Moving back and forth in time, between the last years of the Ottoman Empire and the 1990s, Orhan’s Inheritance is a story of passionate love, unspeakable horrors, incredible resilience, and the hidden stories that can haunt a family for generations.
My Review:
“There, in the spaces between darkness and light, a sadness hangs in the air, invisible to the human eye yet heavy on the heart.”
“Orhan’s Inheritance” is an outstanding work of historical fiction focused on two time periods, the first being 1990 Los Angeles and the second being in 1915 Turkey at the height of the Armenian Genocide. Aline Ohanesian provides readers a beautifully crafted story that brings this little-known tragedy to life through a story based on the real-life experiences of her grandmother.
The author captures the brutal stories of such a tragic era in a haunting, yet beautiful way as she navigates the reader through a maze of emotions. Fantastic character development, majestic symbolism, searingly intuitive imagery, and a brilliant vision into the endless ocean of emotions and capabilities of humanity are all manifested wonderfully throughout her writing. Although Orhan’s Inheritance brings up a very serious subject, it does so with the realism of wartime cruelty, and a large dose of tenderness. Humans are remarkable beings for both their inhumanity and their ability to endure.
The Genocide might be the main plot point but the book is about so much more than just genocide of a people. It deals with Orhan coming to terms with whom he is, his history and that not everything is as it appears to be. Love knows no bounds of time and a person’s label no matter what it is; Armenian, Turk, Christian, Muslim, Mother, Father does not matter as much as being a “person who loves.”
