Kim Kardashian’s success is a fusion of Armenian folklore and the American Dream, says bio author

Vanity Fair has published an excerpt from the book “Citizen Kim: The Woman Who Created the Future,” about Armenian-American television personality and businesswoman Kim Kardashian. The book discusses Kardashian’s Armenian heritage, the influence of her Armenian roots on her, her ancestors, and her achievements.

The book, written by Jonathan Van Meter, will be published on October 27 by Viking.

The author believes that at the heart of Kim Kardashian’s success is a fusion of Armenian folklore and the American Dream.

“It all began with a prophecy, a story foretold by an 11-year-old illiterate boy in Armenia sometime in the mid-19th century, predicting that Christians in the region were doomed if they did not make the voyage to the West Coast of America—California, more specifically. The young prophet’s name was Efim Klubnikin, and he found eager listeners among Kim Kardashian’s ancestors on her father’s side. They were ethnic Armenian,” the book says, noting that Kardashian’s father, Robert Kardashian, told Kim the story over and over when she was a child.

According to the author, Kim’s face lights up when she talks about it:

“My great-grandparents…came from Armenia, and in their village, there was a boy who couldn’t read or write, and he supposedly went into a trance and wrote two letters. The first letter he said to open but not the second letter. And so the first letter said: Everyone will be massacred; go to Los Angeles, California.… The tale has always been that the second letter can’t be opened until it’s time and that a ‘chosen’ Armenian will be drawn to open it one day.”

Jonathan Van Meter believes that, regardless of whether the story is credible, it has profound meaning for many Armenians from that village—and the prophecy was accurate: several years later, the Armenian Genocide happened.

According to the author, from her Armenian heritage Kim Kardashian inherited not only a flair for the uncanny, but also resilience and an entrepreneurial mindset, the flash, the glamour, the salesmanship, the deeply held and practiced principle that family is everything, as well as an obsession with fairness and social justice stemming from an awareness of ancestral persecution and marginalization.

Referring to Kardashian’s grandparents, the book notes that Arthur Kardashian and Haigoohi “Helen” Arakelian were together for 70 years.

“Arthur died at age 95 in 2012; Helen lived to 90, passing away in 2008 (they both lived long enough to see their grandchildren become television stars). Kim has said in many interviews, and from the very beginning of her fame, that ‘being Armenian is a big part of who I am,’ and that her grandparents instilled in her a lot of Armenian values and culture. It is also a big part of how she looks,” the book says.