Barnes and Noble recognized Georgetown University English adjunct lecturer Ariel Djanikian’s new historical fiction novel about a family inheritance during the Klondike Gold Rush as its Book Club pick for October.

Barnes and Noble’s team of booksellers selects one book each month that they would recommend to readers. This month, they chose Djanikian’s novel “The Prospectors,” a story about an unjust inheritance during the 1896-99 Klondike Gold Rush in Yukon, Canada, and its lasting damage 100 years later.

This semester, Djanikian is teaching “Introduction to Fiction Writing” at Georgetown. This is her second year teaching at the university.

Djanikian said the novel is based on her family history: Alice, the protagonist, is based on Djankian’s great-great-grandmother, who journeyed to Klondike with her family. Djanikian said Alice’s memoirs about her travels sparked her interest in telling the story.

“Alice, the protagonist, was my great-great-grandmother, and she went to Klondike with her sister and brother-in-law and left behind a self-published memoir of her travels,” Djanikian told The Hoya. “I found it fascinating, and as I got older, my extended family learned of my interest, and sent me letters and half-finished memoirs from other family members. I gathered up all this information and began to see a full story.”

Apart from drawing on family memoirs, Djanikian conducted extensive historical research in the Klondike region, traveling to Dawson City, Yukon, to work with the Dawson City Museum, which holds an archive of material from the Klondike Gold Rush, and the Dänojà Zho Cultural Center, which has preserved information about the first people of the Klondike. 

When reflecting on the writing process, Djanikian said she initially struggled with managing the immensity of the historical facts.

“When I started the book I felt overwhelmed by trying to get every single fact right and to be extremely thorough,” Djanikian said. “However, you have to let the essential moments rise to the surface and I distanced myself from the material.”

“What was truly interesting and truly important about the story stuck in my head, and I was able to draw on them,” Djanikian added.

Writer Alicia Oltuski, author of “Precious Objects: A Story of Diamonds, Family, and a Way of Life,” met Djanikian at her undergrad fiction workshop at the University of Pennsylvania. Oltuski was one of the early readers of the book and said it touched her.

“There was so much that struck me about it: how textured her scenes and story arcs were, the spellbinding level of detail she was able to weave through the narrative, and the crucial subject of the grave injustices that Indigenous people have endured and continue to endure,” Oltuski wrote to The Hoya.

Professor Daniel Shore, the chair of the department of English, said the recognition of Djanikian’s work was a notable achievement.

“It is always exciting when the work of our faculty gets the recognition it deserves,” Shore wrote to The Hoya.

Djanikian said she tried to balance the bigger picture of indigenous history with the more personal details of her family’s lives through her writing.

“There’s facts and there’s historical events holding the story up. But what history doesn’t always have are those intimate moments, so I guess I used the big events of history to sort of guide my way through the novel,” Djanikian said. “I was really interested in the quiet, private relationships between people, the family drama and rivalries between siblings that didn’t quite make it into what’s left behind in the written record. 

“You have all these little bits and pieces of history, and as a writer you’re always trying to see the big picture and tie things together in a way that will be even more meaningful than the facts or events,” Djanikian said.

Djanikian said she hopes readers will come away with a newly-oriented view of personal life in the face of history, leading them to better understand the Klondike Gold Rush through her book.

“I want readers to have a sensory experience of reading and to feel transported, like they are somewhere else with new people and in the mind of someone who is not themselves,” Djanikian said. “But I also want to be able to take a look at history that’s different from what we’re able to get in other places because fiction starts with the individual and lets you see it from a personal perspective.”