Dana Mashoian Walrath – The Book of Genocides
7:00pm
doors at 6:30
$30 includes copy of The Book of Genocides (optionally signed by the author at the event)
Free community tickets available (limited)
In her graphic narrative, award-winning writer, artist, and descendant of genocide survivors Dana Mashoian Walrath covers 10 major atrocities over 5 centuries.
In this haunting graphic narrative, an award-winning writer, artist, and descendant of genocide survivors brings history’s darkest horrors to life, calling on us to remember, repair, and resist.
The Book of Genocides (Harvard University Press) is a haunting graphic narrative that compels readers to confront the most harrowing chapters of human history not as distant events but as visceral experiences. Dana Mashoian Walrath covers ten major atrocities across five centuries: the mass slaughter of the First Peoples of the Americas, the brutalization of Black Americans, the devastation of Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, the Cambodian killing fields, the Rwandan genocide, the Bosnian genocide, the deadly persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar, and the genocide in Gaza.
Walrath makes plain that the purpose of genocide is always a land grab, and its central apparatus is dehumanization: each chapter delves into how dehumanization operates, not just through violence but through the political and intellectual systems that enable it. The book’s unique interactive design allows readers to reshape images of victims into grotesque forms mirroring the mental mechanisms of dehumanization. With each page turn, the victims’ humanity is restored, making their suffering undeniable.
The Book of Genocides is an unsettling experience, shot through with the emotional gravity of horrific events—not just historical memories but ongoing realities, painful truths that shape our world and demand our action.
“Dana Walrath is an unflinching guide through the long sweep of humanity’s most shameful episodes. This is how art answers back.” – Joe Sacco, author of Palestine and The Once and Future Riot
Dana Mashoian Walrath is a writer, artist, and anthropologist. Her award-winning works include Aliceheimer’s, a graphic memoir about her mother’s dementia journey, and Like Water on Stone, a verse novel about the Armenian genocide. Her comics, art, essays, and poetry have been featured by The Nation, The Lancet, Slate, and NPR. Dana Mashoian Walrath lives in Vermont.
