Ara Azad (Beirut 1962- ) American / Lebanese born to Armenian parents from Aintab andIskenderun. His father, siblings and relatives being barred from interfering with his “disciplining” and raising he rejoices in the comfort of his imaginary world, privacy, and somewhat seclusion. By his mother’s call, his upbringing is solely entrusted to his maternal aunt Ani, a painter, and a pianist. At the age of twelve his delight comes to a sudden numbness as he too witnesses the first calamity of the Lebanese civil war: his was a body being dragged behind a speeding car. “I am of that frightened intergenerational whose short-lived youth-hood turned into the otherwise the unsayable.