Her first book and the beginning of a trilogy of novels , '' Three Apples Fell from Heaven '' ( 2001 ) , is set in Turkey between 1915 – 1917 and depicts the Ottoman government 's genocide of the Armenian population . It was named one of the best books of the year by both The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times . Her second book in the trilogy , '' The Daydreaming Boy '' ( 2004 ) , which earned her the 2004 Lannan Literary Fellowship as well as the 2005 PEN/USA Award for Fiction , is centered on a middle-aged survivor of the genocide living in a 1960s Beirut which itself is facing collapse . The culmination of the trilogy , '' Draining the Sea '' ( 2008 ) , is a fierce critique of America 's complicit involvement in the Guatemalan Civil War
genocide of the Armenian population
Armenian Genocide
Micheline Aharonian Marcom