Dana Mashoian Walrath's 'Book of Genocides' Examines Global Atrocities
Book review: Dana Mashoian Walrath’s “The Book of Genocides”
Harvard University Press will publish "The Book of Genocides" by Dana Mashoian Walrath in 2026, a graphic narrative examining five centuries of mass atrocities across the globe. The illustrated work connects ten historical events including the Armenian Genocide, Holocaust, slavery in the Americas, and contemporary violence in Gaza and Myanmar.
Walrath, whose 2015 novel "Like Water on Stone" explored Armenian Genocide trauma, uses visual storytelling to trace shared mechanics across genocides: the stripping of rights, forced displacement, and land theft. She explicitly rejects comparative suffering, instead emphasizing that all genocides warrant equal moral weight.
The book is drawn over pages from a 1943 zoology textbook, layering genocide narratives with blackout poetry and interactive elements. Walrath incorporates her family's Palu origins while writing from unceded Abenaki land, framing her work within broader histories of settler colonialism and displacement.
