Two new books by Ali Asgarov, a professor at the University of North Carolina of the USA and originally from Western Azerbaijan, have been published. The books focus on the deportation of Azerbaijanis from Armenia in the 20th century and the life of the Azerbaijani community that lived there.

The book titled “Forgotten Exile: The Deportations of Azerbaijanis by the Armenians in the Caucasus during the Twentieth Century”, co-authored by Ali Asgarov and Michael Gunter, a professor at Tennessee Tech University, was published at Brill Publishing in October of this year. The publication examines the deportations carried out by Armenia against Azerbaijanis throughout the 20th century, based on archival documents, interviews, and extensive scholarly sources. An important feature of the book is that it also includes the author’s personal recollections of being forcibly displaced from his native land together with his family in 1988. The work presents factual evidence of the processes of altering the ethnic composition of Azerbaijanis in the region. The State Committee on Work with Diaspora also supported the publication of the book.

The second book, titled “Roots and Ruins: Life in a Lost Village and Twenty-One Years of Soviet Citizenship”, explores the author’s native village of Karabakh and describes the daily life, social structure, education, economic activities of Azerbaijanis living in Armenia, as well as the events that occurred during the period of rising ethnic tensions. The publication is rich in valuable information about the displacement of Azerbaijanis from their homeland and the destruction of Azerbaijani cultural heritage during the Soviet era.

Both books can be considered valuable sources for the scholarly study of historical, demographic, and social processes in Western Azerbaijan.

The books can be obtained through the links below:

https://brill.com/display/title/72640

Amazon.com: Roots and Ruins: Life in a Lost Village and Twenty-One Years of Soviet Citizenship: 9798275414219: Askerov, Ali: Books