Melancholy, rain, snow, windswept landscapes, run-down Soviet buildings, fighting dogs and many sad flowers scattered on the ground in front of the twelve basalt slabs of the Genocide Memorial on the hill of Tsitsernakaberd (“swallow’s fortress” in Armenian); but also raised fists, the symbol of the Armenians’ eternal struggle to ensure that the terrible 1915 events are not forgotten, and untamed faces with fiery eyes bearing the burden of an ancient sadness.

That is the “Armenian wound”. An evocative, compelling title. Antonella Monzoni went there, to that dark and gloomy place. She walked along the streets and through the many (too many) cemeteries of Armenia. She photographed its centuries-old stones, its flagstones engraved with the marvellous letters of its ancient alphabet, its gravestones from which young, thoughtful faces stare at the exhausted survivors as from an altar.
(from Antonia Arslan’s introducing, Italian writer and essayist of Armenian descent, author of the novel La masseria delle allodole (Rizzoli)