Goodbye, Bird

For a twenty-eight-year-old young man who returned from the army several years ago but has yet to reacclimatize to ordinary life, every step, gesture, word, and vision is a revelation, which takes him back to the beginning, to a time when reality had lost its shape, and turned into a new and imperceptible world. In his imagination, he embodies a number of different characters, he feels the presence of his girlfriend again, and remembers friends from his childhood and from the army, who are now gone. This is a book of questions, and the answers to these questions are to be found by the reader. The novel is like a puzzle which needs to be pieced together, and the picture is not complete until the last piece is in place, until the last word of the book has been read. Translated from the Armenian by Nairi Hakhverdi.

Aram Pachyan is an acclaimed writer from the new generation, who writes fiction and non-fiction, and has won several awards and prizes, including the honorable Presidential Prize for Literature in Armenia. His first novel, Goodbye, Bird became a national bestseller in 2012 and is still at the top of the charts for bestselling literature.
Aram Pachyan was born on March 19, 1983, in Vanadzor, Armenia, into a family of medical professionals. From 1999 to 2004 he studied at the law department of Yerevan State University. His work was published for the first time in 2007, and later his stories were printed in various local literary periodicals and literary magazines. Currently he works as a journalist and columnist for the Hraparak newspaper, as well as hosting a radio program and being the author of a literary series.