Novel
The Fool
Խենթը
Raffi · 1881
Synopsis
1877, during the Russo-Turkish war: the Turks besiege the fortress of Bayazit. A young man escapes from it, disguises himself as a buffoon to entertain the enemy camp, then vanishes into the night. The narrative then goes back to a peasant house in Alashkert and a love caught in the currents of the moment, among a rich family, smugglers, corrupt officials, self-absorbed clerics and a young propagandist from Constantinople.
Context
The novel first appeared as a serial in 1880 in the Mshak, the Tiflis newspaper founded by Grigor Artsrouni, where it was a great success, then in volume form at Shusha in 1881. It is set in three districts on the frontier between the Russian and Ottoman empires, Bayazit, Alashkert and Vagharshapat. Its lesson of unity and self-defence was read by a whole generation of young people: a saying has it that there is no Armenian fighter who has not read Raffi.
Who it is for
A long historical novel, with many characters. A few points of reference on the Armenian question in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire are useful.
Prizes and reception
The best-known novel of its author, translated three times into English; its French translation received the Mot d'or for translation in 2008.