Published in 2018, About Strange Lands and People by James Najarian was featured in the anthology Worlds Together, Worlds Apart.
The short story was a finalist in the 2018 Cunningham Short Story Competition.
Najarian is the Director of the Ph.D. program and Editor of Religion and the Arts at Boston College and his research interests are gender and sexuality in literature, poetic influence, and religion in literature.
About Strange Lands and People follows Brendan, a gay Armenian adopted by an American family. Najarian explores the differences of how Brendan and his boyfriend Garo navigate the world of Armenian cultural identity as they set out to find Brendan’s birth parents, both of whom are Armenian.
Garo represents one reality, a boy who grew up in an Armenian household, within an Armenian community. Brendan, on the other hand, represents a different reality, a boy growing up in an American household, where his Armenian heritage is exotic (his kindergarten teacher calls him, “our gypsy boy”).
As Brendan and Garo get closer to learning the truth, Brendan’s inner conflict grows as he wonders what might have been.
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ISBN: 978-1727650686. Published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
