Ashley Kalagian Blunt on My Name is Revenge

On the morning of 17 December 1980, two men shot the Turkish consul-general to Sydney and his bodyguard near the consul’s home in Vaucluse. The assassins aimed, fired, and vanished. The crime remains unsolved.

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This event was part of a wave of international terrorist attacks that took place in the 1970s and 80s with the aim of bringing attention to the ongoing denial of the Armenian Genocide of World War I.

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Join Ashley Kalagian Blunt, author of My Name Is Revenge, for an exploration of this crime and the events that fueled it.

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About the Book

On the morning of 17 December 1980, two men shot the Turkish consul-general to Sydney and his bodyguard near the consul’s home in Vaucluse. The assassins aimed, fired, and vanished.

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A literary thriller novella set in 1980s Sydney and drawn from true events, including a series of international terrorist attacks, My Name is Revenge is the story of a young man seeking justice.

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My Name is Revenge was a finalist in the 2018 Carmel Bird Digital Literary Award, and was shortlisted for the 2019 Woollahra Digital Literary Award.

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Praise

"Ashley Kalagian Blunt weaves a mostly-forgotten strand of our history into a compelling contemporary crime story. My Name is Revenge manages to be both unflinching in its depiction of inherited hatreds and compassionate about the experience of living with the terrible aftermath of a genocide that the world has largely ignored."  - Emily Maguire, author of An Isolated Incident. 

"A heartfelt and gripping story of family, hardship and resilience."  - Candice Fox. 

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About the Author

Ashley Kalagian Blunt’s writing appears in Griffith Review, Sydney Review of Books, the Australian, The Big Issue, Westerly, Kill Your Darlings and more.

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Her Armenian travel memoir was shortlisted for the 2018 Impress Prize for New Writers and the 2017 Kill Your Darlings Unpublished Manuscript Award, and received a 2015 Varuna PIP residency.

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Ashley is an award-winning speaker. She’s appeared at Story Club, Little Fictions and Noted Festival, and is a Moth StorySLAM winner. She has chaired events for Writing NSW, the National Young Writers’ Festival and Sydney Writers’ Festival.

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She has a decade of experience in teaching and curriculum design, including many years working with adults. She completed a Master of Research in creative writing and has previously lived and worked in Canada, South Korea, Peru and Mexico.