Ariel Djanikian
ARIEL DJANIKIAN holds an MFA in Fiction from the University of Michigan and is the author of The Office of Mercy. Her work has been published in Tin House, The Paris Review, The Rumpus, The Millions, and elsewhere. She has received a Fulbright and a Hopwood, among other awards. She teaches at Georgetown University and lives near Washington, DC, with her family. Visit her website here.
THE PROSPECTORS: A NOVEL (October, 2023)
A sweeping rags-to-riches story of survival, greed, and injustice across American history following a family transformed by the Klondike Gold Rush, perfect for readers of The Luminaries and How Much of These Hills Is Gold.
The middle daughter of struggling California fruit farmers, Alice Bush is accustomed to feeling inferior and destitute. But when her elder sister’s husband strikes a vein of gold in the Yukon Territory, Alice finally seizes control of her destiny by joining a wave of white settlers making the dangerous trek to the Klondike.
What follows is an awakening of ambition for the quietly opportunistic Alice, who, by luck and circumstance, becomes tightly intertwined in her sister and brother-in-law’s newfound fortune, as well as the beginning of a generations-long family quest for wealth that unfolds against the icy Canadian wilderness and the booming oilfields of California.
“Told in glimmering prose and rich with historical detail, The Prospectors immerses us in the Yukon Gold Rush so deeply, you can feel the grit on your hands.”—Celeste Ng, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Our Missing Hearts
“An epic story of adventure, THE PROSPECTORS is lavishly researched and deeply felt. A fascinating, page-turning look at the true price of the American dream.”—Jenny Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of Pineapple Street
"The Prospectors is smart, surprising, and epic: the sort of adventure that brings to life both a nineteenth-century gold rush and a twenty-first-century fight for the family riches that remain. It's more than a golden nugget of a novel. It's the motherlode and I absolutely loved it.” –Chris Bohjalian, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant
"Ariel Djanikian's The Prospectors is pure gold-the beauty of Alice's character, the precise rendition of terrain, the pain of the First Nations people who lost to the gold prospectors, Anna's attempt to right her ancestors' wrongs. Only Djanikian could've written this book—it's tender, it's precise, it's brutal, it's complex." –Uwem Akpan, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Say You're One of Them
“Beautifully drawn and deeply moving, The Prospectors illuminates the rich and brutal landscape of the Yukon Gold Rush, along with the triumphs and tragedies of those men and women who claimed it as their own. A brilliant and powerful story, steeped in little-known history, Djankian's new novel shimmers like gold." – Alyson Richman, #1 international bestselling author of The Thread Collectors
"Thought-provoking ... [Protagonist] Alice's morally complex character and vividly evoked experiences are gripping. This offers ample rewards." ―Publishers Weekly
THE OFFICE OF MERCY (2013)
On the screen and on the page, dystopian fantasies have captivated the public imagination. In The Office of Mercy, debut novelist Ariel Djanikian has conceived a chilling, post-apocalyptic page-turner that has earned her glowing comparisons to George Orwell and Suzanne Collins.
In America-Five, there is no suffering, hunger, or inequality. Its citizens inhabit a high-tech Utopia established after a global catastrophe known as the Storm radically altered the planet. Twenty-four-year-old Natasha Wiley works in the Office of Mercy, tasked with humanely terminating—or “sweeping”—the nomadic Storm survivors who live Outside. But after she joins a select team and ventures Outside for the first time, Natasha slowly unravels the mysteries surrounding the Storm—and the secretive elders who run America-Five.
“Intriguing premise. . . . In this thoughtful debut, Djanikian explores the disconnect between a utopian vision and its dystopian implementation. . . . Natasha Wiley, a young citizen assigned to the Office of Mercy, knows empathy will only get in the way of her necessary work, but when she comes into close contact with one of the tribes, her reaction sets off world-changing events.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“ A cool and compelling dystopian bildungsroman from a debut author we imagine we’ll be hearing a lot more from.”—Emily Temple, Flavorwire
“[A] horrifically brutal, compelling debut. . . . A grim muse on a future with shades of The Hunger Games, Djanikian’s first offering should attract readers voracious for this popular subgenre.”—Booklist (starred review)
“Fascinating. . . . Djanikian’s fictitious world combines both the horrifying consequences of ethnic cleansing with the bright new hope of how much one person can do to change history. Both believable and chilling, this tale transports readers to a futuristic utopic life where good and evil mingle with equal opportunity and are often indistinguishable to the characters. This intriguing slice of future drama ends much too soon, and will leave readers begging for a sequel, if not a series.”—Kirkus Reviews
“I gulped this startlingly smart debut down, unable to stop before I found out what happened to brave Natasha and her America-Five compatriots.”—Emma Straub, author of Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures
“[Djanikian] truly shines by plunging her characters into existential crises as they question and finally confront the foundations on which their lives are built. Fans of sci-fi and speculative fiction will enjoy this adventurous exploration of human nature.”—Shelfawareness
“The Office of Mercy is an indisputable page turner with a surprising ending — and crafting prose.”—Michael Schaub, npr.org
Rights: Viking, World; Heyne Verlag, Germany; RWSG, Film.
Warner Horizon Television (The Closer, Pretty Little Liars, Longmire) have optioned The Office of Mercy for development as a one-hour cable television series. Ariel will consult on the pilot and the series.