Her memoir There Was and There Was Not: A Journey Through Hate and Possibility in Turkey, Armenia, and Beyond was a finalist for the 2014 National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography and 2015 Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
Toumani was born to Iranian-Armenian parents in Tehran, Iran, although her family moved to North America by the time she turned two.
[6] She began her journalism career as an editorial assistant for the New York Times, during which she witnessed the spread of Anti-Turkish sentiments across North America.
[1] As a result, in 2005, she flew to Turkey and spent four years in Istanbul[1] conducting research on the Turkish point of view of history.
[9] Her memoir was later named a finalist for the 2014 National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography[10] and 2015 Dayton Literary Peace Prize.