Published in 2023, The Fear of Large and Small Nations by Nancy Agabian is her debut novel.
Written in gripping short stories interspersed with intimate journal entries and blog posts, the fragmented narrative reveals what is lost in the tightrope journey between cultures ravaged by violence and colonialism–and what is gained when one woman seizes control of her story, pulsating in its many shades and realities, daring to be witnessed.
Nancy Agabian’s previous books include Me as her again: True Stories of an Armenian Daughter, a memoir honored as a Lambda Literary Award finalist for LGBT Nonfiction and shortlisted for a William Saroyan International Writing Prize, and Princess Freak, a collection of poetry and performance art texts. In 2021 she was awarded Lambda Literary Foundation’s Jeanne Córdova Prize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction. The Fear of Large and Small Nations is her first novel.
Feminist writer and teacher Natalee–aka Na–flees the conservative fearmongering of George W. Bush’s America to reclaim her cultural roots in post-Soviet Armenia. As she contends with rigid gender roles and rampant homophobia, learning the language when her linguistic roots in the Ottoman Empire have all but disappeared, and centering her identity as a bisexual Armenian American woman amid her own secret desire for love, Na is soon left with more questions than answers about where her fractured self belongs in the world.
From the book description
Literary Lights: Featuring The Fear of Large and Small Nations
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ISBN: 979-8-98596-923-8. Published by Nauset Press.
