Mountains on Fire

Mountains on Fire Այրվող Սարեր is a noir thriller grounded in the historical facts of the Nagorno-Karabakh War (1988-1994). It is set in Nagorno-Karabakh itself as well as Yerevan, 1993-1994, as the war reaches its peak and dark times have descended. Two decorated war heroes, Gregory Yaloyan and Haik Nalbandyan, have been executed for high treason. The various accounts of their collusion with the enemy don't add up to a journalist, who sets about reconstructing their final days by talking with dodgy characters who claim knowledge of the events. Yaloyan passed secret codes to the Azeris. Nalbandyan planted explosives in a children's amusement park and shot up a church. But why? Or did the two soldiers become caught up in a conspiracy orchestrated by a mysterious man with a violin case? The future of the state of Armenia hangs in the balance.

"Aram Yardumian's Mountains on Fire, about the Armenian Azerbaijani war of 1992-94 in Nagorno-Karabakh, is a thriller with a documentary foundation: the author was present in the places of the action and knows his subject well. Yardumian writes fiction with openness and honesty that is rare--intimate details of the war are many, and the novel balances on the verge of non-fiction. It's a story of suspense that American readers will appreciate for the plot and come away with knowledge about these events still largely unknown in the US."

--Ilya Kutik, Poet, Associate Professor, Northwestern University