A Pillow for My Head: A Young Girl's Journey of Survival, is the true story of Siranouche Pertodian, an Armenian woman who survived the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and journeyed alone from her homeland to the United States.

Born in Sebastia (Sivas) in 1900, Siranouche's early childhood is filled with family, music, and security-until loss shatters her world. After the death of her mother, she is left vulnerable to forced servitude, displacement, and the brutal realities inflicted upon Armenians during the genocide carried out by the Turkish government. Still a child, she learns to endure hunger, fear, and violence while clinging to memory as her only constant.

Separated from nearly all of her family, Siranouche survives a long and perilous journey across unfamiliar lands, narrowly escaping death multiple times. Her path is marked not by heroics, but by resilience-by the quiet determination to live when everything else has been taken.

Her journey ends in 1921 at Ellis Island, where survival finally gives way to safety, though the cost of what she has endured can never be undone. Told through her remembered experiences and preserved by her daughter and granddaughter, A Pillow for My Head gives voice to a woman whose story might otherwise have been lost.

This powerful biography bears witness to genocide through the eyes of a child and stands as a testament to survival, memory, and the unbreakable human will.