Role: Author

Shahé Mankerian is the principal of St. Gregory Hovsepian School and the director of mentorship at the International Armenian Literary Alliance (IALA). This debut collection has been a finalist at the Bibby First Book Competition, the Crab Orchard Poetry Open Competition, the Quercus Review Press Poetry Book Award, and the White Pine Press Poetry Prize.

Shahen Derderian was barely eight years old when the Ottoman Turkish government deported his family, along with the entire Armenian community of his native Sebastia (now Sivas). The uprooting was part of an elaborate Turkish plan to exterminate the Armenian population of Anatolia. In the ensuing forced marches, the Sebastia caravan - one among countless others - was subjected by the Turkish police and hired criminals to a systematic spree of murder, robbery, rape, and death by starvation and disease. Young Shahen Derderian survived the carnage through sheer miracle.