[Editor’s Note: Award-winning author Dr. Rosemary Hartounian Cohen will discuss her newest book “Anoush, the Daughter of King Shen” and exhibit her 43 original illustrations from the book on Saturday afternoon, from 2 until 6, at a private home, 1611 Melwood Dr., Glendale. RSVP to rosemary@atelierdeparis.com]
Through a series of widely different genres in the last 15 years, devoted readers of Dr. Rosemary Hartounian Cohen have learned that a story weaving among her tender, merciful, quintessentially maternal fingers is a stimulating cerebral feast without match.
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Beginning with the unimaginable tragedy that befell her younger daughter 20 years ago, emptying her own life as if a teeming bucket had been turned upside down, Dr. Cohen alternately has taken us through intolerably harsh and compellingly loving pathways she has traveled.
Earlier this year, she gave us the memorable historic panorama, “The Mother of Jerusalem Is Crying.”
Before year’s end, Dr. Cohen returns, unexpectedly and rewardingly, with an Armenian fairy tale – she being Armenian by birth.
Retold intimately, caressingly with perfectly calculated drama and suspense, “Anoush, the Daughter of King Shen,” as the Los Angeles author tells us, is a vividly recalled memory from her childhood in the Middle East.
Employing her diverse talents, Dr. Cohen enriches our reading experience with 43 illustrations she created.
“As a child, I loved hearing my mother tell me the story of Anoush, a young princess whose father was the kindly king of a small but happy country, far away in both time and place.
“The story not only was wonderfully entertaining, but also instructive.
“A kindness of the king is repaid with treachery and murder, and a falsely accused Anoush is banished to the wilderness with her two children.
“After many hardships, and through magical intervention, Anoush and her children are reunited with their family. At long last, an evil wrong is righted.
“I never tired of hearing this fairy tale – Armenian in origin, I believe. As I grew older, I came to realize that it is a fable for adults as well as children. It speaks to the universal desires for fairness, justice and a happy ending.
“I have written down the story as closely as I could remember to the way my mother told it, in the belief that many others, young and old, would also enjoy ‘Anoush, the Daughter of King Shen.’
Dr. Rosemary Hartounian Cohen, who lives in the Fairfax District, earned her Ph.D in sociology from the Sorbonne in Paris. She lived in two other countries before moving with her husband and children to Los Angeles in 1984. She has published four books in America. Since 1985, Dr. Cohen has operated Atelier de Paris, an international art business, on Robertson Boulevard. She may be contacted at rosemary@atelierdeparis.com and www.licopublishing.com
