Pre-Read notes

I'm a huge fan of short fiction and this sounded like a good read. Also, I don't know much about Armenian history, so I figured I would learn some things.

Final Review

“I should have stayed,” Arusiak wept then, “people belong where their roots are.” p22

Review summary and recommendations

This collection of stories about living in a conflict zone is one of my favorite reads of the year. Harrowing yet tender, the stories will pierce you right to the core. The pace is fast because the stories are mostly quite short. I enjoyed this aspect, but it enhances the emotional upheaval the stories made me feel to begin with.

I think stories about women and animals in war zones are incredibly important narratives. I'm going to start seeking out more of these. For another moving book about women in conflict zones, I highly recommend Looking at Women Looking at War by Victoria Amelina (my review!).

I recommend this book to readers interested in wartime journalism, women in conflict zones, and Armenia's history of conflict.

There once were three friends, now only two remained. p78

Reading Notes

Five things I loved:

1. I really love the notes at the ends of the stories, as they offered additional clarity on the stories. More clarity is always better!

2. Once, he even worked up the courage to propose marriage to her. To this, she responded that between the two of them , they would have too much grief to carry. On our own, at least we can manage somehow, she said. p27 These stories really get at the heart of what it means to live and love in times of great conflict.

3. “The worst thing about death isn’t its existence so much as the fact that it enjoys deforming and humiliating the human body. It’s no better than an ignoble adversary, who, having vanquished his opponent, desecrates his fallen body,” thought Maro bitterly. p36 First of all, yes. Second, this is a fascinating take on death that seperates humanity from the body, despite, you know, dna.

4. A rooster crowed loudly , echoed by a second and a third one. The birds could always tell the end of shelling. p38 This kind of detail makes these brief stories feel so real in a small space.

5. She went into the kitchen, her bare feet slapping against the cool floor, and returned with a bread crust that she crumbled outside her window. She watched, captivated, as the sparrows immediately dropped their squabble and set upon the crumbs. The tiniest one among them had a few damaged feathers, and Tsovinar wondered if it was hurt. But no, it ate its fill and took off, lively, brushing against the stone wall of the house with its wings. Tsovinar craned her neck and followed its flight as it dove into the morning fog and reemerged, as if for air, before disappearing forever. The dense, viscous fog dissipated slowly and reluctantly, here getting tangled in the branches of an old quince tree in one place, there settling down to rest in the crowns of the oaks. p59 The detail of the descriptive writing pulls the reader in close, it's beautiful.

One quibbles:

1. The repetitive names are sort of confusing, though I did appreciate that the author made a note about the names in the front matter!

Notes

1. content warning: war, guns, shooting, death, genocide, animal death, animal cruelty, child abuse, starvation, trauma, probably more that I missed.

2. There are 43 instances of the word "rug," although sometimes it's nested in other words– shrugged. Coincidentally, there are 16 instances of "shrug". I really didn't make much of the repetition here. Have any ideas? I'd love to hear them!

Favorite Stories/Poems/essays:
1. "Summer"
2. "Toast"
3. "Thunderstorm"

Thoughts on the Stories:

1. "In Place of a Preface: Zanazan" - This was a really beautiful way to open the collection.
2. "Merelots" - I had to read this one 3 times to make the connections. But once I connected, it was worth it. You say goodbye when you have something to say. She had nothing to say to them. p12
3. "Tights" - Everyone marveled at how a simple village woman could possess so much grace. She toiled in the fields and washed her linens in the river, but nonetheless resembled a porcelain figurine: delicate, slender , outlandish. p14 For such short story, there is wonderful character development.
4. "Bundle" - Nice humor here: “Well, are you planning to marry your girls off? Or will you keep them tucked under your wing forever?” guffawed the neighbor. Vasak was mortified. He even made a crude joke to mask his embarrassment, of course I am, he said, I’m not going to pickle them. p19
5. "Baghardj" - Sad and eye-opening, this story is about how war quickens relationships, and kills them.
6. "Loneliness" - Wonderful use of run-ons here.
7. "To Live" - “Shame on you, measuring human blood in tablespoons,” Maro chided herself. p36
8. "Baklava" - Some of these glimpses of war are moving and expanding despite the sadness. This story is particularly intimate and I loved it.
9. "Gulpa" - A story about cows in war time and so much more.
10. "Rug" - She started shedding events and people the way a tree sheds its leaves in autumn. p50 An eye-opening look at war memory and memory in war.
11. "Valley" - A wonderful local myth drives this one.
12. "Waiting" - A story about the thibgs you only encounter in wartime, like the POW in your parents' barn. A brilliant ending here.
13. "Summer" - Dushman, by contrast, looks like the harbinger of apocalypse: with two different-colored eyes, disheveled, and ferocious. He is fat and clubfooted but surprisingly nimble and can reach ground speeds of one hundred and twenty kilometers per hour. Dushman rams his way through whatever he encounters, regardless of what it may be. p64 Dushman is a turkey, by the way!
14. "Prayer" - Ever since the day she returned from her brother’s funeral to discover a smoking crater instead of her stone two-storied house and her orchard of fruit trees, she never stepped outside her gates. p70 Abgaryan can create a complex, dynamic characters with a mere sentence, it's amazing!
15. "Homecoming" - There once were three friends, now only two remained. p78
16. "Toast" - Nugzar never scolds them: what is the point, they are still little, their brains impressionable, not fully formed. You can teach them what you like: if you teach them kindness, they will be kind, if you teach them evil, they will be mean-spirited. p84
17. "Khachkar" - Tea, more specifically it's vapors, play an interesting role here.
18. "Thunderstorm" - It's just wonderful when I find authors who can write about a character's suicide without stigmatizing them. This kind of representation is important. Thank you to the author for seeing us.
19. "Hunger" - “So my kids aren’t kids, then?[...]Half of my relatives are not refugees, right? It’s okay to steal from me, right? Because I’m a pansy and not a man , right? And I don’t have a right to eat!” p101
20. "Lace" - Wonderful bits of magical realism here. ["]Every time the mullah called for a prayer, the stork would fly up to the edge of its nest and freeze at attention for the entire duration of the service, as if standing guard. One time it flew south and did not come back; everybody thought it had perished during the journey, but it finally did return by July. It was weak and sick; it collapsed on the threshold of the mosque and expired. I see it even now, the mullah carrying the stork his arms like some priceless cargo, like a fragile glass vessel, with tears of pure, sincere sorrow streaming down his face.” p108
21. "Herd" - Some people are wretched even besides the war they live through.
23. "Stroll" - “She will grow up a beauty,” said the neighbors. “What matters most is that she grows up happy,” her mother would counter. p121 Agreed.
24. "Boots" - “So when God was distributing conscience, he deliberately skipped you?” p125
25. "Choice" - "When God deprives a man of one quality, he overcompensates for another." p129
26. "The Heart" - The order of action was odd here, I thought. A very sad love story.
27. "Silence" - This food sounds like a dream!
28. "Laughter" - n/a
29. "Immortelle' - After several weeks they received word that her father had been taken prisoner. From the day he passed away, Ashkhen lost her ability to take full breaths. p158
30. "Guilt" - A story about the secondary losses you experience in war, like connection with in-laws when the people linking you die unexpectedly.
31. "Salvation" - That year, the harvest was the most bountiful they had ever had, and the entire family went to pick peaches while Mariam stayed back to cook syrup for her peach jam. Who could have thought that war breaks out so suddenly and so stealthily? Who could have known? p167
32. "Fogs" - Brilliant description of fog in this one. I swear I could taste it
33. "In Lieu of an Epilogue" - This is one of the best parts of the book.

Rating: 👩🏾‍🦱🧕🏻🫃🏻🤱🏻💁🏻‍♀️ /5 women in war
Recommend? yes!
Finished: Apr 28 '25
Format: accessible digital arc, NetGalley
Read this book if you like:
📰 journalistic nonfiction
📃 short stories, essays
👤 auto-fiction
🏹 wartime writings
♀️ stories about women in wartime

Thank you to the author Narine Abgaryan, publishers Plough Publishing, and NetGalley for an advance digital copy of TO GO ON LIVING. All views are mine.
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This is a powerful collection of short stories, all based around a small village, and the people living there as they do their best to survive war. It’s one thing to see stories on the news about how horrible war is, how much it’s harming people, it’s another to be brought into their lives and see it first hand. Although this is a work of fiction, it has a ring of truth to it, and will for anyone who has read detailed first-hand accounts or lived through similar things themselves. The stories are short enough that you could easily read one whenever you get a little amount of time, but you’ll find yourself reluctant to stop once you begin to read. There’s sorrow, grief, loss, twists of fate, and at times, threads of hope the light of humanity shining through the senseless violence. If you enjoy literary fiction, then this is one powerful read you don’t want to miss out on.

To Go on Living is a collection of 31 interconnected short stories set in the rural mountainous Armenian village of Berd, around the time of the conflict with Azerbijan in the early 1990s. The stories are short, many just 2-3 pages each, and the writing is simple and straightforward, much like most of the characters - and that's not a criticism. The interconnected nature of the stories, where a minor character in one appears as the protagonist in a later story, is very effective at giving the reader a picture of an entire community coping in the aftermath of conflict and tragedy. As a collection, it is greater than the sum of its parts. I found keeping a list of characters and mapping the connections between the stories a rewarding experience. This is not a feel-good book. Most every character has suffered a major loss and/or is living in hardship. Yet the book doesn't feel overwhelmingly bleak. There here is some humour, plenty of warmth and love, and a good deal of down-to-earth resilience, of moving on, of finding renewed purpose.

As a non-Armenian and someone who appreciates learning through literature I found this book rewarding, not just for the picture it provided of the lasting impact of the war on ordinary people, but for the wider glimpses it offered of the country and its people; things like the natural environment, food, clothing, social customs and conventions, and language. I love when some words and phrases of the original language are retained in a translated work as was done here. Footnotes led to a translation or explanation, but comprehension was generally possible via context. The author is adept at weaving in aspects of traditional folk tales, and some of these stories have that classic folk tale feel about them. But they are all too real and often personal, as the final story and the poignant "In lieu of an epilogue" section makes clear.

Highly recommend this to readers who enjoy global literature. Sadly, its key theme of ordinary people trying to survive in the aftermath of armed conflict shows no signs of becoming irrelevant.

4.25 stars.
Saying I was heartbroken by most of these short stories doesn’t even begin to cover it.

To Go on Living isn’t a war story in the traditional sense — it’s about the quiet, everyday lives left in war’s wake. Across 31 interconnected vignettes, the author zooms in on ordinary people—fathers, nurses, spouses, —each shaped by loss. There’s tenderness here, unexpected humor, and a fragile thread of hope woven through the darkness.

This was my first time reading a book by this author, and I was deeply impressed and genuinely moved by the entire novel.

Thank you to Netgalley and Plough Publishing for the arc:

This book is hard to read. Not because of the writing or translation, which I found to be beautiful, but because of the subject matter. There is so much heartbreak in this. Intensified by the fact that you know it’s real and that so many lives have been ruined, and that people continue to live in the pain caused by this war.

The characters and their histories with each other are beautifully written. Recognizing them from story to story made it all the more painful when horrific things would happen.

But while this book has so much pain, it also has incredible love and hope. There are stories and homes in this that feel warm and loving. They’re so alive.

“Life is fairer than death, and that’s what encapsulates its unbreakable truth. It is necessary to believe this in order to go on living.”

This is a collection of short stories that merge into a novel. The merge is not very smooth, but it doesn't matter, because the theme is important.
All stories are set in a little town called Berd in a region called Nagorno-Karabakh. Every story describes how the local people are affected by the conflict. Each of the characters wants to live their life happily, with joy and in good health. They all want to love and be loved. Are they asking for too much? Of course not. These people have done nothing wrong, they just were born in a region where two religions clash. Every story is very sad, you can feel desperation, total devastation, and yet they still have hope. If you are a sensitive reader, have a box of Kleenex at hand.
This book can't be understood without the context. So here it is: Armenia and Georgia are the only Christian countries in the region. They are surrounded by Turkey, Iran, and Azerbaijan. These are Islamic countries. Azerbaijan used to be a fairly liberal country with a multicultural population. But Iran started meddling in the region pretty badly, and within a decade, they financed and set up 22000, yes, twenty-two thousand religious schools in Azerbaijan! Think of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Basically, the Christian countries are the grain of salt in Islamic eyes.
The book refers to the war in 1993, but who of you knows that in 2020 there were heavy fights on the border? Who knows about the ethnic cleansing that took place in 2023? It's like yesterday. Look at the history. The past 120 years have been nothing but a systematic annihilation of Christian communities in the region, started by the Pontic genocide in Turkey.
This book is extremely important due to its educational value. It raises the awareness of what is going on in there. These people are alone in their fight. They have very little help and support. It's our duty to be aware and to speak up.
Please read this book and share it with your friends and family.

To Go On Living took me a little while to get into due to some formatting issues with the original ARC, but thankfully the publisher was kind enough to send me a second copy that worked much better and allowed me to enjoy the interconnectedness of these stories more. On their own, each story showcased the tragedies that war can inflict on people, both instantly and longterm. At times, it was a very depressing book (naturally for that theme) and reading too many of its stories at once sometimes felt like it took away from each individual one, making it feel like monotone and repetitive here and there, but I still am really glad I read it. It's easy to live in a country that isn't directly affected by war in such a visceral way and I find it important to remind people (including myself) that not everyone enjoys that privilege.

I honestly thought this was a nonfiction book until right before writing this review. I probably was aware of it being fiction when I first accepted it, but it must've flown my mind by the time I got started reading. The characters felt so real to me that I still struggle to believe they are fictional. This wasn't the story of one person and how their life changed or how they learned something important. It wasn't a self-help book that taught me one of life's big secrets (though it still contained multiple lessons we could all learn from). No, this was a collection of short stories that were all connected through the people they were about and the struggles that the war ravaging through their homes caused. It wasn't a story about a big adventure where the protagonist vanquished the big evil and returned home a hero. It was about villagers that had come to this town or left it, some to return while others could not, before, during, and after the atrocities that occurred in their area. It was about how they turned towards each other or into themselves, what they were willing to do to continue on, to go on living.

While this might've been a fictional short story collection, you can feel that the author has personal experience with such tragedy in the way she made these characters come alive. She was named one of Europe's most exciting authors by the Guardian, and I am definitely interested in reading more from her.

To Go On Living

There are no small wars for the participants or the survivors. These interconnected stories, set in 1990s Armenia, are pithy and poignant, eloquently describing a reality many of us would find unfamiliar. They are beautifully written, small gems on a string. Not for everyone, I found them enlightening.

I wanted to read this collection of stories because I was intrigued; I have never read Armenian literature until now, and this was a very eye opening glimpse into the recent history of the country and the tragedies its people face. The characters in these stories all know and interact with each other, and since their stories take place in the midst of war, there is a lot of tragedy, resilience, and hope happening for them. The translation also uses direct Armenian words and culture, with footnotes explaining what they mean. I certainly walked away wanting to read more; I'll be looking for more of the author's work in translation!

This book, bound to be published on April 22nd, is a collection of short stories set in Berd, a remote village in Armenia. During the conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan during the early 1990s, this collection is written in a beautiful, fascinating kind of prose, depicting themes of war, loss, loneliness. The war isn't described in an “in-your-face” way, but it is always there, affecting the lives of the villagers in subtle but powerful ways.

The –carefully linked– stories of the book remind us of the fragility of life, celebrating those who survived and commemorating the losses of the war.

It's, more than anything, an experience.

My thanks to Netgalley, Plough Publishing House and Narine Abgaryan for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

this was a collection of short stories that had a lot of potential but unfortunately didn't quite hit the mark. because there were 31 stories included, i didn't feel like we spent enough time with each character/story to really make an impact the way i would have liked, especially since there were some heavy themes and tragic events that occurred in every one. if it had been maybe cut in half, the author would have been able to develop each story further and explore more of each character's perspective. the writing was still stunning and i do feel like there was an important message to take away from the book overall.

be ready with your tissues if you decide to read this one.

To Go On Living by Narine Abgaryan is a deeply human story following the lives of thirty-one people living in a small, Armenian village. Separate but connected these stories share the raw first hand experiences post the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the 1990s. Each character has a unique story to tell and that is shown as they go about their days.

Abgaryan paints a very realistic story through these characters and their experiences. While the book is short it's length does not dampen it's impact and emotional intensity.

I would like to start this review off by giving my thanks to Plough Books and NetGalley for allowing me the opportunity to read an ARC of this collection.

I found the translation for this collection of short stories to be absolutely beautiful, and I believe that Margarit Ordukhanyan and Zara Torlone have done an amazing job of keeping the emotion of the original writing intact while giving new readers the opportunity to read Narine Abgaryan's work. I hope that, with this being published, more people will be able to learn about and understand the pain of the Armenian war and its effects on those who lived through it.

The writing is incredibly poetic, which I think captured the horrors and heartbreak of the war perfectly. Each story is laced with the melancholy that can only come out of something so brutal and traumatic, and Abgaryan does not shy away from the details at all– which is a necessary wake up call, I believe, as people need to start facing the realities of these events. It is not meant to be comfortable, it is meant to be sickening, and upsetting, and difficult to read, because that is exactly what war is.

Each story is linked with the next, as it follows the townspeople through the war. While I would have liked a little more historical context, it is ultimately not the point of this collection. The point is to bring to light what the people of Berd went through, and continue to go through in the aftermath of war, and Abgaryan has done a beautiful job of that.

To Go On Living tore my heart into shards but also mended it back together with hope and tenderness. This remarkable book is comprised of poignant short stories in the aftermath of war and details courage, the deepest of sorrows, folk tradition and culture, tragedy, community, survival, and the human spirit.

The the mountain village of Berd, Armenia, borders Azerbaijan and in the 1990s it was ravaged by war. Some villagers decided to or had to remain in the warzone. Each short story details the repercussions.

Armenia's culture and traditions are fascinating to learn about but oh, the characters! So real with vivid and stark emotions and painful reactions to grief. Conscription was a reality. Many people were injured and worse and death revealed itself in many forms. Life had to go on no matter how famished or injured one was. Everyday life was a blessing in ways yet also a cruel reminder.

This novel is like a landscape painting, raw and beautiful, with various hidden elements which can at first seem ordinary but grab you as you realize how multilayered it is. The depth is tragic and painful and sharp. Many concepts and comments caused me to really think, such as by whose yardstick should one measure pain and the observation that life is fairer than death.

Though difficult to read, this book is powerful and impactful. It moved me to tears and gave me goosebumps. My reading experience with it was breathtaking! It has HEART. Do be sure to read the author notes for further information.

4.5⭐️

[a copy of this book was provided to me by the published from netgalley. thank you!]

i thought that the prose was absolutely beautiful, and the characters were well thought through with their own original identities. beautiful translation

Thank you to Plough Publishing House and NetGalley for the eGalley to review!

This was a hard one to read, but only because of the tragic history of it all. It was also beautifully inspirational, showcasing the human spirit and vitality in the face of extreme adversity. It humanizes those whose lives have been torn apart by war and is something we still need even after all these decades later. History textbooks broaden the scope of such historical events, while anthologies like these narrow it down to show that were people in this event. People that have their own lives, their own personal histories. Books like this put names and faces to events that likely get glossed over in many ways. It also reminds us of how horrific war is on even the smallest scales.

I think this would make an excellent addition to any history collection that needs more specific accounts of certain events, as well as any humanitarian collection. It's tough to read, but so worth it.

This was a selection of connected character short stories surrounding war, grief and love. A completely different read for me and it was hard to get through, but so eye opening. Harrowing stories that unfortunately are still prevalent in 2025.

I just finished the most inspirational book of short stories. I love hearing about people overcoming obstacles. Watch for To Go On Living.

Already after the first of the thirteen stories, a lump formed in my throat. This is a heavy read—one that brought tears to my eyes. The stories, full of painful beauty, are difficult to get through, portraying the absolute ugliness of war and its lasting impact on those close to it. Yet, amidst the heartbreak, there’s a simple, mundane beauty in the glimpses of life in the rural Armenian village of Berd and the enduring bonds between its people. My only struggle was that, ultimately, I almost started mixing up the characters due to their interconnected backgrounds.

Narine Abgaryan was once a blogger, and her recent collection of short stories reads like a blog. It consists of 31 brief anecdotes about how common people bear the anguish that inevitably accompanies war. Her theme is how everyday life can erase the aches caused by war. Seen together, these linked stories are a testament to community, courage, and hope.

Abgaryan sets her stories in the rural Armenian village of Berd located in the mountains on the border with Azerbaijan. The countryside is being ravaged by the war between these two countries. Men of all ages are being conscripted to fight and many die. Civilians also are caught up in the fighting as victims of snipers and home invasions. Notwithstanding these historic events, Abgaryan only shows the war as background through hearsay. Instead, her focus is almost entirely on the inhabitants of the village. Despite the blog-like feel of the stories, they to coalesce around common characters and settings.

The tone is hopeful but not naïve. One senses that she believes strongly that these people will survive these tests and everything may work out in the end for them. Abgaryan’s character depictions are rich, and her narratives are sensitive to Armenian traditions, language and culture.