The Kaleidoscope of Destiny by Sarah Ignatius
The year is 1915. War rages in Europe while Armenians in the Ottoman Empire find themselves unfairly blamed for a major military defeat. Cooped up at home, fourteen-year-old Arakel tries to ignore rumors of arrests and beatings of Armenians by focusing on the journey he’ll take with his two best friends, one Turkish and the other Armenian, on the Silk Road to China in two years, certain war will be over by then.
His life is torn apart when Turkish officials arrest almost all of the Armenian men in his town, including his father and older brother, and order nearly all of the remaining Armenians into exile in the desert amidst rumors of massacres. Tormented by armed guards, Arakel doesn’t grasp what’s happening until they strip his family of food, water, and their meager possessions and force them across the Euphrates River, where bloated corpses float by. He has crossed into the land of the dead. In a desperate struggle to survive, Arakel must rely on people of different faiths and backgrounds-Bedouins, Kurds, Arab camel drivers, Turks, Germans, even a wandering dervish-people he considers enemies-but how can he trust them?
In a barbaric world, he confronts what lies deep within the human heart. With an elegance reaffirming our collective humanity, The Kaleidoscope of Destiny reveals the courage, hope, and ingenuity to survive the darkest of times during an often-overlooked part of history and will resonate in today’s challenges.
Praise for the Book
“This moving account of the Armenian genocide highlights a period of history that’s often overlooked and deserves a place on classroom bookshelves and on reading lists next to Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl. The moments in which Arakel experiences kindness and friendship among all the horrors he sees are stirring reminders of the resilience of humanity. . . . A beautiful and poignant novel that humanizes the Armenian genocide for a contemporary audience.” — Kirkus Reviews
Before publishing her debut novel, The Kaleidoscope of Destiny, Sarah Ignatius worked for many years as a human rights lawyer and as a nonprofit executive director. She taught immigration and asylum law at Boston College Law School for many years and is the coauthor of Immigration Law and the Family. She also authored a detailed report on the US asylum system for Harvard Law School’s National Asylum Study Project, and her legal articles have appeared in the Harvard Human Rights Journal, Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, Benders Immigration Bulletin, and Immigration Briefings. Ignatius has received recognition from the New England Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators and the National League of American Pen Women, as well as Glimmer Train, and was selected as a Somerville Arts Council Literature Artist Fellow. Ignatius graduated from Stanford University and Georgetown University Law Center. She is half-Armenian and lives in Massachusetts with her family.
Ignatius’ debut novel will be released by Koehler Books on September 22, and will be featured—on the same day—in our Literary Lights 2026 reading series. Stay tuned for the announcement and support our work by pre-ordering the book at our Bookshop.org storefront.
The opinions expressed in this publication are solely those of the author and do not represent an official position of the International Armenian Literary Alliance.