Submitted on Friday, 4/16/2021, at 4:04 PM

The Armenian Weekly interviews the bestselling author and shares the prologue of Hour of the Witch, his novel that will be released on May 4.

Reporter Pauline Getzoyan speaks with Bohjalian about the new novel, which is set in 17th-century Puritan New England, and about what it has been like for him to write while in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. “In short, the whole awful year impacted my process and what I do, both emotionally and logistically,” he says.

The interview also addresses the Armenian Genocide of 1915–17—which was the subject of Bohjalian’s 2013 novel The Sandcastle Girls—as well as the violent conflict that took place in the fall of 2020 in a disputed region called Artsakh, whose population is majority Armenian. 

Bohjalian, who is Armenian American, says the following about including Armenian characters in his fiction: “I do try and do two things when I can: first, show Armenians living in the world as it is, whether the world is in Yerevan or Los Angeles; second, show something of Armenian culture, whether it’s as simple as a building or an earring or a song. It’s a way of reminding my readers, ‘We’re still here, thank you very much. And we are not just victims.’”