Archive for the ‘Dance of the Banished’ Category

“Dance of the Banished is based on true accounts about Alevi Kurds who were victims of war in Anatolia and the Canadian government’s internment camps in Ontario during World War I. The novel sheds light on the subtleties of cultural groups within geographical regions and their fate at the hands of the more powerful…. A dynamic […]

International Dance Day is a yearly event intended to celebrate dance as a universal art form that brings people together across cultural, political and ethnic barriers as a shared language. We’re celebrating today by giving centre stage to the semah, the traditional ritual-dance of the Alevi-Baktaşi people that is still flourishing today. Both of the […]

Dance of the Banished by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch has been selected as an Outstanding International Book by the United States Board on Books for Young People for 2016. This is a high honour given to a shortlist of books first published outside of the United States that are “deemed most outstanding of those published during […]

Pajama Press is honoured to celebrate a win for the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People for the second year in a row. Dance of the Banished by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch received the award on November 18th at the Canadian Children’s Literature Awards Gala at the Carlu in Toronto. “In Canada we […]

The International Youth Library has named Dance of the Banished by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch a 2015 White Ravens Selection. The White Ravens Catalogue, a list of international children’s books considered especially noteworthy by the IYL’s language specialists, is compiled annually and distributed at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair. Noteworthiness is determined based on the books’ […]

Pajama Press is pleased to announce that Dance of the Banished by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch has been shortlisted for the 2015 Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People. This Young Adult novel, set in Canada and Anatolia during World War I, uses a compelling love story to explore two difficult and significant historical […]

“…Although the story is fictional, “it is based on real historical events,” award-winning Canadian author Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch writes in her ending “Author’s Note.” What happens to the lovers, their families, their homeland, demands and deserves far more attention. Both Zeynap and Ali are Alevi Kurds, an ethnic minority about which is little known in the West. […]

Pajama Press author Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch was honoured on May 22, 2015, by the Armenian Prelacy of Canada. Among Skrypuch’s many books for children and teens are six that are set during or after the Armenian Genocide, an event whose centennial anniversary is being marked this year. Above: Bishop Meghrig Parikian, Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, Father […]

On April 24, 2015, Armenians around the world will mark the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, a systematic campaign by Turkish leaders in the Ottoman Empire to remove the empire’s Christian Armenian population. As evidenced by recent headlines, the subject is controversial today because the Turkish government denies that these deportations and killings can […]

“Ali and his fiancée, Zeynep, are Anatolian Alevi Kurds facing the hardships imposed by Turkish revolutionary forces. Ali preemptively immigrates to Kapuskasing, Ontario, but is identified as an enemy alien and imprisoned in an internment camp. Zeynep’s journey to find her future with Ali takes her from 1914 to 1916, from Harput, Anatolia, to Kars, […]