[19] Zabelle was one of several novels and memoirs by the Armenian-American writers such as Rise the Euphrates (1994) by Carol Edgarian and The Black Dog of Fate (1997) by Peter Balakian that appeared in the late 20th century dealing with the matter of the Armenian genocide, which had been a subject that had long been ignored in American literature.

[19] Vartanian wrote Kricorian's novels concern female characters with "huge appetites" for wanting to explore and enjoy the world who are usually faced with some moral dilemma.

[8] The narrator says of her youth: "we didn't speak of those times, but they were like dead and rotting animals behind the walls of our house", reflecting Kricorian's belief that the genocide had done lasting harm to the Armenians.

[9] Her second novel, Dreams of Bread and Fire (2003) also concerned the legacy of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust as well as a half-Jewish, half-Armenian young American woman named Ani Silver confronts the suffering on both the paternal and maternal sides of her family during a lengthy trip to Paris.

[22] Van turns out to be a member of the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, a group considered to be a terrorist organization by the governments of the United States and Turkey.

[8] In a review in the Los Angeles Times, Susan Salter Reynolds wrote that in Dreams of Bread and Fire: "Kricorian does for young women what James Joyce did for middle aged men, she allows us to scramble safely amid the debris of new love, rejection, sex, and identity.

[23] Through the film, she learned of the story of Missak Manouchian, the Armenian military commander of the FTP-MOI resistance group that consisted of immigrants to France, the largest number of which were Jews from Eastern Europe.

[23] Kricorian also first learned of the Affiche Rouge ("Red Poster") from Des terroristes à la retraite that appeared all over France starting on February 21, 1944 bearing the photographs of Manouchian and other executed FTP-MOI members.

[21] Kricorian was especially struck by the marginal status of the individuals featured in the Affiche Rouge, noting a number of them were stateless people who had been stripped of their citizenship for being Jewish.

[24] Kricorian believes that American society has been deadened by consumerism and materialism into apathy and indifference to social problems, saying "They want us to watch TV and shop".

[21] Kricorian admitted her work on her novel was slowed down by her activism as she joined the New York chapter of the feminist pacifist group Code Pink and stated "I devoted the six months leading up to the 2004 U.S presidential election to unseating the junta".

I went to Paris to tour the lycée that my narrator and protagonist Maral Pegorian had attended, and to interview octogenarian and nonagenarian Parisian Armenians who had lived through the war.

Through the research, several salient material details were impressed upon me again and again: during the Occupation ordinary people were hungry most of the time, during the four winters under Nazi rule Paris apartments were generally without heat, and Parisians were often in the dark both literally and metaphorically.

Nighttime blackouts meant the streets were dark and curfews often kept people in their homes after nightfall...While I was writing, I traveled back in time and across the ocean to Occupied Paris.

I could not only hear the voices of my characters, but I could also feel the cold air seeping in the cracks around the window frames, and smell the dreaded rutabagas cooking in the kitchen.

Kricorian wrote in a 2012 essay: "Charles Aznavour, 19 at the time, was responsible for the nighttime task of dumping the deserters' boots and uniforms into the sewers of Paris.

[36] In an interview on October 28, 2011, Kricorian stated that her belief that "voting no longer represents democracy" as she believes that the rich have corrupted the politicians and that she hopes that "the wealthy realize that their well-being is dependent on the health and happiness of the 99 percent.

[37] On December 4, 2014, she took part in a march in New York to protest several police killings of Afro-Americans, most notably Eric Garner, and declared her support for Black Lives Matter.

Today, the two nations of Turkey and Azerbaijan have a combined population of more than 90 million and have supplemented their fighters with mercenary forces from Syria and Libya hired by a Turkish contracting company.

Both Turkey and Azerbaijan have a history of committing genocide and pogroms against Armenians in the twentieth century, while also being more significantly armed with the world's most sophisticated weaponry.

"[40] The letter speculated that the vast oil wealth of Azerbaijan together with the pro-Azerbaijani stance of Turkey was influencing the American media's coverage of the war.

[43] She cited Theodor W. Adorno's remark that writing can be a way to recreate a lost homeland, which is why she felt that the Palestinian community had produced so many writers whose books deal with the themes of loss and exile.

[44] She supports boycotting Israel and in particular is against the Israeli cosmetic company Ahava, which operates a factory in the West Bank by the shores of the Dead Sea, where it extracts minerals it uses for its skin care products.

"[47] The petition was signed by over a 1,000 American intellectuals, the best known of whom were Molly Crabapple, Rehab Nazzal, Judith Butler, Angela Davis; Rachel Kushner and Ottessa Moshfegh.