FINALIST FOR THE DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE
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"MacKeen doesn’t shirk from recounting the grisly details of genocide, describing brutal beatings, hunger to the point of cannibalism, and thirst to the point of urine-drinking. With a health-care reporter’s deft touch, she manages to play down the utter pathos, but her dedication to baring gruesome facts is as unfailing as her loyalty to the mission thrust upon her." —Barron's
"Must read"—New York Post
"Gripping"—Outside
"MacKeen weaves multiple historical sources for corroboration and context, but her main material, Stepan’s unpublished memoir, lands the emotional punch of personal narrative. MacKeen’s added perspective is what makes this book though. A moving portrait of one family’s relationship to the past that offers surprising hope for reconciliation."—Toronto Globe and Mail
"This previously untold story of survival and personal fortitude is on par with Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken. Further, this is a tale of tracing your family roots and learning about who you are."--Library Journal, STARRED review
"Harrowing"—Us Weekly
"Powerful"–Khloe Kardashian, Koko's Book Club pick
"A century later, his journalist granddaughter found his first hand accounts of his harrowing journey, and in an attempt to learn more about him, set out on her own journey to follow his route through Turkey and Syria. The result is a compelling new take on an important, too-little-understood chapter of history."—The National Book Review
“Part family heirloom, part history lesson, The Hundred-Year Walk is an emotionally poignant work, powerfully imagined and expertly crafted. The considerable archival scaffolding remains invisible as MacKeen carries her readers on an emotional journey full of heartache and hope.”
—Aline Ohanesian, author of Orhan’s Inheritance
“In her remarkable book, The Hundred-Year Walk, Dawn MacKeen has taken the Armenian genocide and shown us its terrifying flesh, blood, bone, and sinew. Her vehicle is her grandfather’s forced deportation, and she uses it to take the reader on a horrific ride into the heart of one of history’s darkest moments.”
—S. C. Gwynne, author of Empire of the Summer Moon
“I am in awe of what Dawn MacKeen has done here. With the meticulousness of a historian, the courage of an investigative reporter, and the compassion of a daughter mining a fraught and cherished family legacy, MacKeen has accomplished the near impossible. She has elucidated a complicated ethnic and political history through a delightfully literary lens. Her sentences sing. Her research shines. Her readers will be rapt—and a lot smarter by the end.”
—Meghan Daum, author of The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion
“By telling the riveting story of her grandfather Stepan, who—like the armies of refugees today—overcame daunting odds as he braved the Turkish gauntlet of death and walked across desert sands to safety, Dawn MacKeen drives home that we’re all part of the human family. The Hundred-Year Walk is an unforgettable contribution to the literature of suffering and memory, and to the growing conviction that we must say ‘Never again’ to the mass destruction of human life and culture."
—David Talbot, author of The Devil’s Chessboard
"The Armenian genocide has been forgotten today except by those who keep it alive. Investigative reporter Dawn Anahid MacKeen grew up hearing stories… Her own grandfather was one of those Armenian migrants forced to walk from Turkey to Syria. She retraces his steps in her remarkable new book, The Hundred-Year Walk." —John Hockenberry, PRI’s The Takeaway
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Excerpts/Articles
ELLE "I Retraced My Grandfather's 1000-Mile Odyssey With His Journals as My Guide"