Join us for a free reading of Zabel in Exile, a new play about the extraordinary life of Armenian writer, political activist, and feminist Zabel Yessayan. She harnessed the power of the pen to fight for equality and peace and often found herself at odds with the authorities in the tumultuous world of early 20th-century Europe.

The play takes place during Yessayan’s interrogation by the Soviets for espionage. As she fights to survive, Yessayan must come to terms with the whole of her life and the impact of her writings and actions.

The play is partly based on Yessayan’s book In the Ruins, which is her eyewitness testimony of the 1909 massacres of Armenians in Adana, Turkey, and her memoir, The Gardens of Silihdar. Other works include her novels My Soul in Exile and In the Waiting Room, which confront the isolation and alienation faced by women.