Borer-Play by Anahit Ghazaryan and Arakel Minasian

Non-fiction / 2022 / 80 pages

Border-play is a unique attempt at dialogue, whose theme, in addition to the manner in which the dialogue was realized, forces its reader to think, on the one hand, about the “irreconcilable proximity” of Eastern and Western Armenian, and on the other hand, about language in general, in both its written and oral forms. The discourse established by the synthesis of the genres of “diary” and “internet messaging” allows the reader to enter a space that is public, political, and historical as much as it is personal. The speakers – Anahit and Arakel – perform their life experiences, their friendship, and their everyday lives together and apart, all the while thinking about their similarities and differences as Armenians from Armenia and the diaspora, respectively. They attempt to capture that fleeting border that at once identifies them with one another and differentiates them. The speakers are moved by the idea of finding this border and crossing it, something which often takes place, but the charm of this game is the very fact that there is no stable border, it is rather moving and inconstant.