The Crimson Field

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 568 pages
• Published by: Pearlida Publishing
• Edition: 1st Edition September 5, 2005
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0977187349
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0977187348
• Book Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 2 inches
• Weighs: 2.2 pounds

Product Review
Few people within the mainstream American culture even know the Assyrian people still exist. Fewer know anything about the Genocide perpetrated against them. Almost three million Assyrian, Armenian and Greek Christians were murdered by the Islamic Ottoman Turks during World War I because of their ethnicity and faith. The Crimson Field assigns faces and names to the victims of this dreadful chapter of history. It captures the plight of an Assyrian girl, helplessly caught up in the turmoil of her surroundings. Malek-Yonan's work shines a terrible light on an overlooked study of Islamic violence during the 20th Century. It is a must read for any human being interested in learning about the personal cost of Islamic Jihad. --Lee Enokian,The Times (Northwest Indiana) and The Illinois Leader

I have completed reading your wonderful historical novel, The Crimson Field. It is, in my opinion, truly a fine piece of writing, and I congradulate you. You have done a great service to the Assyrian people and to humanity in general by recording the terrible tragedy that befell the Assyrian people in the early 20th century. --Prof. Dwight Simpson, Professor of International Relations, San Francisco State University, California

Upon seizing Jerusalem in 1799, the future French Emperor Napoleon was said to have been struck by the sight of pious Jews shedding tears beside the Wailing Wall. Still further struck when informed that the Temple above the Wall had been ruined over 17 centuries before, he could not but exclaim in amazement: And they are still weeping! So are the Assyrians, who have a Wailing Wall of their own after being expelled from their historical motherland in 1918. This is Urmia, the focus of their 19th century efforts to revive the Assyrian culture and regain nationhood. Losing it caused a similar frustration to the loss of Nineveh 25 centuries earlier. A bleeding wound in the national psyche that ensued is best compared to a lesion in the heart from a severe life-threatening attack. It badly hurts and will continue so in many more generations of the Assyrian people. The dispersal of the Jews is part of common knowledge. The 20th century flight and subsequent dispersal of the Assyrians are largely to the Assyrians themselves. Being untold and unexplained, this tragedy is all the more hurtful, creating the feeling of desperation and no way forward for them. This tragic feeling pulsates in "The Crimson Field" by Ms. Rosie Malek-Yonan. A composer, a pianist, a film and stage actress, and a gifted writer, so talented a human being is the best imaginable mouthpiece for this feeling. She expresses it so intelligently, caringly and tactfully, that an image arises of a suffering nation that gradually overcomes a tragedy in its recent past with wisdom and spiritual fortitude. The plot is centered on the family history of an Assyrian lady named Maghdleta. This history unfolds as part of the recent history of the entire Assyrian people. All major events with the Assyrians in the 20th century are reconstructed with scientific precision and in places they almost give the novel the feel of a documentary. Overarching everything are marvelous love stories of rare psychological elaboration and artistic quality. They are a golden find in the novel. Mastership of music enables the author to provide precise emotional and psychological guidance for the reader, setting fine tonal guidelines for each passage in her book. Characters from four generations of women are in the spotlight, Pari, Maghdleta, Maghdleta's daughters and Maghdleta's granddaughters. The main supporting characters (such as Soeur Marie, Zahra Khanoom, Shakar and Madam Gaudin), too, are all women. This feminine prevalence in the book creates overwhelming passion and emotion which keep the reader riveted. Emotional poignancy in the novel comes to its peak in a small girl named Fibronia. Her tragic story reasserts the old maxim that the treasures of the entire world cannot redeem a single tear of a weeping child. Last, but by no means least, the author treats her complicated and multifaceted subject in ways and terms that are easily comprehensible and quite simple. My everyday tongue is Russian, but, unexpectedly and I am never tired of thanking God for this I easily read "The Crimson Field" in its original language, English. Moreover, I read it on a single breath. Ms. Rosie Malek-Yonan succeeded in winning what writing is actually for, emotional and intellectual involvement by the reader. --Professor S.G. Osipov, MD, PhD, DSc, Moscow, Russia

Product Description
A tour-de-force, Rosie Malek-Yonan's "The Crimson Field" is a brilliant and gritty historical and literary novel with enormous implications. Uncompromising and un-flinching, it is based on real events and true family chronicles set to the backdrop of the Assyrian Massacres of 1914-1918 in Urmi, Iran. This is a unique triumph in that the Assyrian tragedy unfolds in an epic novel, the first of its kind, supported by actual painstakingly researched historical facts of a nation's raw and agonizing past; a nation that has never been fully healed of its bleeding wounds and still grieves for its fallen martyrs. Malek-Yonan's intense interest in her family s history that cannot be separated from her Assyrian heritage and historical events that have swept that nation in a deluge of bloodbath, began more than two decades ago. As she embarked on her journey of discovery, searching family documents and probing for her roots, she found a commonality with her Assyrian people who experienced the same trenchant attacks as her family at the hands of the Turks and Kurds nearly a century ago. "The Crimson Field" is a harsh, yet poetic, narrative of the author s maternal grand-mother, Maghdleta s lifelong struggle to come to terms with a momentary decision made in haste during the brutality of the Assyrian Massacres and Genocide. "The Crimson Field" is a reconstruction of history, brick by brick, reassembling the un-imaginable losses suffered by an Assyrian lady and those of her nation. Rosie Malek-Yonan s high-spirited approach affords the reader a rare glimpse into the lives of a nation bereaved and long imagined to be forgotten. This epic novel is a tender reminder of the resilience of a people in their quest for survival. "The Crimson Field" is the author s Requiem Mass for her Assyria.

Reader Reviews
This is a great book which shows the extents of the crimes done to Assyrians during WWI by Moslems. Even today, Assyrians are being persecuted for their only crime is being Christians. History does repeat itself and I hope books like this would make people aware of the crimes done against humanity. This book is very well written, a great story. I would recommend this book to everyone especially Assyrians so they know more about happened during WWI.