comes from a family that experienced the Armenian genocide. The mass murder of the Armenians, which was carried out by the Turks between 1895 and 1909, counts as the first case of genocide in modern European history, and in one sense is regarded as the most 'perfect' case: it has to all intents and purposes been totally forgotten. Even the memory of the Armenian victims has been forgotten – as if they had never existed in the first place. Nichanian, currently Professor of Armenian Language and Literature at Columbia University in New York, has devoted his life to collecting, translating and making accessible the texts of survivors and witnesses of the genocide. He is also an important thinker in assessing the cultural philosophical influence of genocide on our society. In 2002 he published the first part of a multipartite work entitled: Writers of Disaster. Vol. I. Armenian Literature in the Twentieth Century.