YEREVAN, MAY 22, ARMENPRESS. "The Little Prince" by French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry tops this week's "Bestseller Books List" introduced by "Armenpress" News Agency. The novella is both the most read and most translated book in the French language, and was voted the best book of the 20th century in France. The book was translated into more than 250 languages and dialects, as well as Braille.

Saint-Exupéry, a laureate of several of France's highest literary awards and a reserve military pilot at the start of the Second World War, wrote and illustrated the manuscript while exiled in the United States after the Fall of France. He had travelled there on a personal mission to persuade its government to quickly enter the war against Nazi Germany. In the midst of personal upheavals and failing health he produced almost half of the writings he would be remembered for, including a tender tale of loneliness, friendship, love and loss, in the form of a young prince fallen to Earth.

“The Book of Lamentations'' by St. Gregory of Narek published by “MHM” and “Zangak” publishing houses occupies the second position of the list. The mystical poem "Book of Lamentations" has been translated into many languages and has played a significant role in the development of the Armenian literary language. In 95 grace-filled prayers St. Gregory draws on the exquisite potential of the Classical Armenian language to translate the pure sighs of the broken and contrite heart into an offering of words pleasing to God. The result is an edifice of faith for the ages, unique in Christian literature for its rich imagery, its subtle theology, its Biblical erudition, and the sincere immediacy of its communication with God. This masterpiece by St. Gregory of Narek has always been included in our bestseller books list. 

Works by the Great Russian author Alexander Pushkin enclosed in the two volumes has appeared for the first time in our list and occupies the third place. Pushkin was born into Russian nobility in Moscow. His matrilineal great grandfather was Abram Gannibal, who was brought over as a slave from what is now Cameroon. Pushkin published his first poem at the age of fifteen, and was widely recognized by the literary establishment by the time of his graduation from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum.

While under the strict surveillance of the Tsar's political police and unable to publish, Pushkin wrote his most famous play, the drama Boris Godunov. His novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, was serialized between 1825 and 1832.

Notoriously touchy about his honour, Pushkin fought as many as twenty-nine duels, and was fatally wounded in such an encounter with Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès. Pushkin had accused D'Anthès, a French officer serving with the Chevalier Guard Regiment of attempting to seduce the poet's wife, Natalya Pushkina.

"One Hundred Years of Solitude" again by Columbian author Gabriel García Márquez occupies the 4th place. One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founds the town of Macondo, the metaphoric Colombia.

The widely acclaimed book, considered by many to be the author's masterpiece, was first published in Spanish in 1967, and subsequently has been translated into thirty-seven languages and has sold more than 30 million copies. The magical realist style and thematic substance of One Hundred Years of Solitude established it as an important, representative novel of the literary Latin American Boom of the 1960s and 1970s, which wasstylistically influenced by Modernism (European and North American) and the Cuban Vanguardia (Vanguard) literary movement. One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, and alive with unforgettable men and women -- brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul -- this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.

“Mother” by Henri Verneuil occupies the fifth place. Henri Verneuil was born on October 15, 1920 in Rodosto, Turkey as Achod Malakian. He was a director and writer, known for The Sicilian Clan (1969), The Night Caller (1975) and I as in Icarus (1979). He died on January 11, 2002 in Bagnolet, Seine-Saint-Denis, France. It was at the tender age of 4 that Achod Malakian arrived with his family in Marseille, joining thousands of Armenians in fleeing the Turkish government's massacres of their people. As Henri Verneuil, at the end of his life, he devoted his two final full-length features to this part of his childhood and heritage.

Born in Turkey and was a naturalized French citizen of Armenian ancestry. Former journalist, editor, film critic and radio commentator. Directed his first short film in 1946, his first motion picture six years later. Best known for his popular thrillers and action films, frequently starring Jean Gabin.

"The Alchemist" novel by contemporary Brazilian author Paulo Coelho appeared in the sixth position of the "Bestseller Books List". This book has been translated into 67 languages and according to AFP, it has sold more than 30 million copies in 56 different languages, becoming one of the best-selling books in history and winning the Guinness World Record for most translated book by a living author. An allegorical novel, The Alchemist follows a young Andalusian shepherd named Santiago in his journey to Egypt, after having a recurring dream of finding treasure there. The Alchemist follows the journey of an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago. Santiago, believing a recurring dream to be prophetic, decides to travel to a Romani in a nearby town to discover its meaning. A gypsy woman tells him that there is a treasure in the Pyramids in Egypt.

Early into his journey, he meets an old king, Melchizedek, who tells him to sell his sheep to travel to Egypt and introduces the idea of a Personal Legend (which is always capitalized in the book). Your Personal Legend "is what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young, knows what their Personal Legend is". He adds that "when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it". This is the core theme of the book.

“The Autumn of the Patriarch” again by Gabriel García Márquez occupies the seventh position. One of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's most intricate and ambitious works, The Autumn of the Patriarch is a brilliant tale of a Caribbean tyrant and the corruption of power.

From charity to deceit, benevolence to violence, fear of God to extreme cruelty, the dictator of The Autumn of the Patriarch embodies the best and the worst of human nature. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the renowned master of magical realism, vividly portrays the dying tyrant caught in the prison of his own dictatorship. Employing an innovative, dreamlike style, and overflowing with symbolic descriptions, the novel transports the reader to a world that is at once fanciful and real.

The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian occupies the 8th place. Over the course of his career, New York Times bestselling novelist Chris Bohjalian has taken readers on a spectacular array of journeys. Midwives brought us to an isolated Vermont farmhouse on an icy winter’s night and a homebirth gone tragically wrong. The Double Bind perfectly conjured the Roaring Twenties on Long Island – and a young social worker’s descent into madness. And Skeletons at the Feast chronicled the last six months of World War Two in Poland and Germany with nail-biting authenticity. As The Washington Post Book World has written, Bohjalian writes “the sorts of books people stay awake all night to finish."

In his fifteenth book, The Sandcastle Girls, he brings us on a very different kind of journey. This spellbinding tale travels between Aleppo, Syria in 1915 and Bronxville, New York in 2012—a sweeping historical love story steeped in the author's Armenian heritage, making it his most personal novel to date.

When Elizabeth Endicott arrives in Syria she has a diploma from Mount Holyoke College, a crash course in nursing, and only the most basic grasp of the Armenian language. The First World War is spreading across Europe and she has volunteered on behalf of the Boston-based Friends of Armenia to deliver food and medical aid to refugees of the Armenian Genocide. There Elizabeth becomes friendly with Armen, a young Armenian engineer who has already lost his wife and infant daughter. When Armen leaves Aleppo to join the British army in Egypt, he begins to write Elizabeth letters, and comes to realize that he has fallen in love with the wealthy, young American woman who is so different from the wife he lost.

Flash forward to the present, where we meet Laura Petrosian, a novelist living in suburban New York. Although her grandparents' ornate Pelham home was affectionately nicknamed "The Ottoman Annex," Laura has never really given her Armenian heritage much thought. But when an old friend calls, claiming to have seen a newspaper photo of Laura's grandmother promoting an exhibit at a Boston museum, Laura embarks on a journey back through her family's history that reveals love, loss – and a wrenching secret that has been buried for generations.

And "The Name of the Rose" by Italian author Umberto Eco occupies the 9th place of this week's "Bestseller Books List" introduced by "Armenpress" News Agency. A spectacular best seller and now a classic, The Name of the Rose catapulted Umberto Eco, an Italian professor of semiotics turned novelist, to international prominence. An erudite murder mystery set in a fourteenth-century monastery, it is not only a gripping story but also a brilliant exploration of medieval philosophy, history, theology, and logic.

In 1327, Brother William of Baskerville is sent to investigate a wealthy Italian abbey whose monks are suspected of heresy. When his mission is overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths patterned on the book of Revelation, Brother William turns detective, following the trail of a conspiracy that brings him face-to-face with the abbey’s labyrinthine secrets, the subversive effects of laughter, and the medieval Inquisition. Caught in a power struggle between the emperor he serves and the pope who rules the Church, Brother William comes to see that what is at stake is larger than any mere political dispute–that his investigation is being blocked by those who fear imagination, curiosity, and the power of ideas.

The Name of the Rose offers the reader not only an ingeniously constructed mystery—complete with secret symbols and coded manuscripts—but also an unparalleled portrait of the medieval world on the brink of profound transformation.

“Book of Whispers” authored by Varujan Vosganian is in the 10th place. The book is about the Armenian Genocide. This year “Book of Whispers” has been nominated for Nobel Prize.

The book’s plot is woven with the characters of the author’s own family – with his grandfather Garabet as protagonist.

Naturally, in focusing the reader on the author’s grandparents, “The Book Of Whispers” examines the Armenian Genocide perpetrated in Turkey – the epochal calamity that sadly befell our people and robbed countless families of their homes, churches, schools, livelihoods and murdered 1.5 million people.

Like many Armenians who managed to escape the Genocide, Varujan Vosganian’s relatives found their way to Romania – their adoptive second home where they became proud patriots who enjoyed the freedom to practice their religion and maintain their ancient traditions.

The story of the book continues through the decades into Romania’s post World War II era where occupying Soviet troops brought with them both Communism and dictatorship. It is in these times that Voscanian recounts the story of how a group of Nationalist Armenians were rounded up and deported to Russia where many perished in Siberian gulags. Similar sad tales of Romanian Armenians being “repatriated” to Armenia also form part of the colorful fabric of this important work.

To complete the bestseller list, the following bookshops have participated in the survey: “New Book” (093-60-40-64), “Noah’s Ark” (56-81-84), Armenian Book” (54-07-06), “Edit Print” (57-70-09), “Bureaucrat” (50-01-52), “Bookinist” (53-74-13), “Art Bridge” (58-12-84)  and “Zangak” (23-25-28).

Completed by Roza Grigoryan