On Tuesday, May 13th at 7:00pm in Yerevan Room at the Diocesan Complex, the Zohrab Center will host a book presentation by NYU professor of Italian studies, Ara H. Merjian, translator of Aram’s Notebook (Swan Isle Press / University of Chicago Press, 2024), a novel based on the Armenian Genocide, originally written in Catalan. Prof. Merjian will speak about the novel, after which there will be a Q&A and book signing, with copies of the book available for sale at the event.
Ara H. Merjian is professor of Italian Studies at New York University, where he is an affiliate of the Institute of Fine Arts and the Department of Art History. He is a member of the College of Professors in the Department of History, University of Milan, and the author of Giorgio de Chirico and the Metaphysical City: Nietzsche, Modernism, Paris and Blueprints and Ruins: Giorgio de Chicrico and the Architectural Imagination from the Avant-Gardes to Postmodernism, both from Yale University Press.
Following the successful experience of the 12-week Գրաբար medieval Armenian poetry reading course and based on student demand, a ten-week continuation course will be offered April 7 – June 9 on Mondays from 2:00pm–4:00pm ET by Zoom, taught by Zohrab Center director Dr. Jesse Arlen.
In part 1 of the course, in addition to some basic grammar lessons, participants read and translated hymns by two early female hymnographers, Khosrovidukht Goghtnatsi and Sahakdukht Siwnetsi, a poetic meditation on the transience of this world by Anania of Narek, selections from the prayerbook of St. Gregory of Narek, as well as one of the latter’s liturgical odes on the Resurrection.
In the continuation course, participants will read from the poetic works of St. Nerses Shnorhali and other later medieval poets.
There is no course fee, but some basic familiarity with Classical Armenian (or knowledge of Modern Armenian) is recommended for participants.
Please register at this link. Those unable to follow the sessions live may have access to the recordings and course materials by registering at the above Zoom link.
On Tuesday, April 29th, at 7:00pm, the Zohrab Center will host a conversation between internationally renowned author, Narine Abgaryan, and her English-language translators, Margarit Ordukhanyan and Zara Torlone, in celebration of the release of the short story collection To Go on Living (Plough Press, 2025) and as part of the author’s April US tour.
At the event will be copies of the book for sale and a book signing with the author and translators.
About the Book
Set in rural Armenia in the aftermath of war, Narine Abgaryan’s haunting short stories show people finding hope and purpose again. Named “one of Europe’s most exciting authors” by the Guardian, Narine Abgaryan has written a dozen books which have collectively sold over 1.35 million copies. To Go On Living comes directly from her experiences coming of age during the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the early 1990s. Set in an Armenian mountain village, thirty-one linked short stories trace the interconnected lives of villagers tending to their everyday tasks, engaging in quotidian squabbles, and celebrating small joys against a breathtaking landscape. Yet the setting, suspended in time and space, belies unspeakable tragedy: every character contends with an unbearable burden of loss. The war rages largely off the book’s pages, appearing only in fragmented flashbacks. Abgaryan’s stories focus on how the survivors work, both as individuals and as a community, to find a way forward. Written in Abgaryan’s signature style that weaves elements of Armenian folk tradition into her prose, these stories of community, courage, and resilience celebrate human life, where humor, love and hope prevail in unthinkable circumstances. Narine Abgaryan’s stories shed fresh light on this forgotten corner of the world. “Humanity is in dire need of hope, of kind stories,” she told the Guardian. She’s given them to us here.
About the Author
NARINE ABGARYAN was born in 1971 in Berd, Armenia, to a doctor and a school teacher. Named one of Europe’s most exciting authors by the Guardian, she is the author of a dozen books, which have collectively sold over 1.35 million copies. Her book Three Apples Fell from the Sky won the Leo Tolstoy Yasnaya Polyana Award and an English PEN Award, and has been translated into 27 languages. Her award-winning trilogy about Manunia, a busy and troublesome 11-year-old, has been made into a TV series. Abgaryan divides her time between Armenia and Germany.
About the Translators
Margarit Ordukhanyan, PhD, is a New York-based scholar and translator of poetry and prose from her native Armenian and Russian into English. She was a 2023 National Endowment of the Arts Translation Fellow and is currently a fellow at the Vartan Gregorian Center for Research in the Humanities at the New York Public Library.
Zara Torlone, PhD, a native of Armenia, is a professor in the classics department at Miami University, Ohio. She received her BA in classical philology from Moscow University and her PhD in classics from Columbia University. She is the author of Russia and the Classics: Poetry’s Foreign Muse (Duckworth, 2009) and Vergil in Russia: National Identity and Classical Reception (Oxford University Press, 2015), among other books.
Advance Praise for To Go on Living
I was blown away by these stories of war told through the lives of ordinary folk in a small rural community. Understated and exquisite, full of compassion and humanity, humor and hope, they enrich us with their tender portrayal of resilience in the face of brutality and tragedy. Narine Abgaryan is a writer of genius. —Mary Chamberlain, author of The Dressmaker’s War
Narine Abgaryan is an Armenian who writes in Russian and lives in Germany. As her Russian reader and admirer, I will say that in our literature she is one of a kind: she is absolutely at home and actually occupies one of the most venerable rooms. This book is about Armenia, a country that has seen much suffering. Yet despite describing tragic and at times terrifying events, To Go On Living contains neither desperation nor bitterness. It contains only grief, love, and hope. —Eugene Vodalazkin, author of Laurus
Narine Abgaryan’s stories describe universal pain of war that transcends boundaries and ethnicities. As an Azerbaijani, I appreciated these narratives of Armenians who lived through war between Azerbaijan and Armenia and carry its scars. The author shows how wounds of war linger from generation to generation. The everyday realities of traumatized people who have to live with memories of war and loss come alive in these pages and remind us that suffering, like love and mercy, is above politics and can be a uniting force between former enemies. —Agshin Jafarov, Azerbaijani novelist
The U.S. premiere of the award-winning piece will take place at the Hear Now Music Festival in Los Angeles on May 18th.
The text of the piece is derived from Tenny Arlen’s poem «Մերելածին», [mereladzin] or “Stillborn”, from her collection To Say with Passion: Why Am I Here?(Yerevan: ARI Literature Foundation, 2021). The title and the refrain «Յղի» [hghi] translate to “pregnant.”
In Armenian:
Ես եմ
անկարողութիւնը։
Մէջս կը կրեմ զայն,
բառերու կողով մը անխօս,
[…]
Յղի,
կեանք մը կը կազմուի բառերու—
ոչ ինչպէս հարկ էր ըլլար։
Ծայրանդամներ, չպատմուած ծագում
—ծուռ, սուր ակռաներ—
քսան ծիրանագոյն ոտնամատ:
Բերքը վիժելը
միտքը փոխել չէ։
[…]
Ահա կը շնչեմ, ահա կը կ՛ըմպեմ, ահա
եմ։
[…]
[Յղի]
[…]
[…] կեանք տալով մեռեալին,
մոռցուելիքին,
մտաբերում մարդկութեան։
Կը հասկնա՞ս
ասիկա։
[…]
[…] բերքս—
մեռեալ է ծնած։
Եւ—ես եմ—ընծայուած—
անձայն։
In English:
I am
the inability.
I carry it in me,
a basket of unspoken words,
[…]
Pregnant,
A life of words is forming—
not as it should be.
Limbs, unaccounted spring
—crooked, sharp teeth—
twenty apricot-colored toes.
To abort the growth
is not to unthink.
[…]
Here I breathe, here I drink, here
I am.
[…]
[Pregnant]
[…]
[…] giving life to the dead,
The would be forgotten,
evocation of humanity.
Do you understand
this?
[…]
[…] my growth—
is stillborn.
And—I am—rendered—
silent.
The Zohrab Center is pleased to share that the third annual Grace and Paul Shahinian Armenian Christian Art and Culture Lecture, established through the generosity of Mr. Dean Shahinian, will take place on March 27th in Washington, D.C. Please find the details below:
Lecture Title: “When Things Fall Apart: Disentangling Christian-Muslim Relations in Medieval Armenia”
Speaker: Prof. Sergio La Porta
Place: Heritage Hall in O’Connell Hall at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
Date and Time: March 27 at 5 pm
Lecture open and free to the public. Reception to follow
Dr. Sergio La Porta is currently the Acting Dean of the Kremen School of Education and Human Development at California State University, Fresno. Prior to assuming this role, he was the Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities and the Haig and Isabel Berberian Professor of Armenian Studies. His most recent book publication, co-authored with Dr. Alison Vacca, is entitled, An Armenian Futūḥ Narrative: Łewond’s Eighth-Century History of the Caliphate (Chicago: Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, 2024). In addition, Dr. La Porta has published on the Armenian commentaries on the works attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite, and numerous articles on medieval Armenian intellectual history and cultural interactions with the Islamicate, Byzantine, and Latinate worlds.
The Byzantine annexation of Armenia in the eleventh century followed by the Seljuk invasions brought dramatic political and demographic changes to the region. Nonetheless, a modus vivendi between Christians and Muslims in Armenia was established by the end of that century. This condition of “rough tolerance,” to borrow a phrase used by MacEvitt in the context of the Crusades, lasted until the second half of the twelfth century. This talk will argue that contemporary Armenian stories of martyrdom both shed light on the previous state of affairs and document the disintegration of intercommunal relations during this period.
Past Lectures in the Grace and Paul Shahinian Armenian Christian Art and Culture Lecture Series:
(1) The inaugural lecture was on March 23, 2023 at 5 pm (Heritage Hall, The Catholic University of America). The speaker was Prof. Christina Maranci (Harvard University) who spoke on the topic “Armenia and the World in Art and Text.” For a video of the lecture, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBccQFf1Tmg&t=15s
(2) On March 21, 2024 we hosted the Second Annual “The Grace and Paul Shahinian Armenian Christian Art and Culture Lecture Series.” The speaker was Prof. Zara Pogossian (University of Florence) who spoke on the topic “Women and Power in Medieval Armenia: Beyond Local Dynasties and Eurasian Empires.” For a video of the lecture, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-Uyg8VUfzc&t=212s
Join us for the launch of our reading series, Literary Lights 2025, featuring Wasafiri Magazine’s special “Armenia(n)s – Elevation” issue editors and contributors. Editors Tatevik Ayvazyan and Naneh Hovhannisyan will be joined by contributors Dr. Jesse Arlen, Eddie Arnavoudian, Olivia Katrandjian, Lola Koundakjian, Nancy Kricorian, Christopher Millis, Margarit Ordukhanyan, Thomas Toghramadjian, Taline Voskeritchian, and guest reader Hovsep Markarian.
The event, cosponsored by Wasafiri Magazine, will take place on Zoom on February 15, 2025 at 9:00 AM Pacific | 12:00 PM Eastern | 9:00 PM AMT. Register here.
Literary Lights is a monthly reading series organized by IALA, the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research, and the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center. Each event—held online or in-person—will feature a writer reading from their work, followed by a discussion with an interviewer and audience members. Keep an eye on our website and socials for the exact dates of each event. Read along with the series by purchasing titles from the IALA Bookstore powered by Bookshop.
From poetry and fiction to thought-provoking book reviews, art, life writing and in-depth interviews, Wasafiri’s “Armenia(n)s – Elevation” is a rich tapestry of modern Armenian voices. It offers readers a profound and eloquent exploration of the human condition through meditations on the Armenian language, culture, and identity. Featured contributors include award-winners such as Chris Bohjalian, Nancy Kricorian, and many more. Learn more about this landmark edition.
Armenia(n)s: Elevation Editors
Tatevik Ayvazyan is a London-based writer and producer with Rebel Republic Films and the former director of the Armenian Institute. She is the producer of the award-winning poetry film, Taniel, and is currently adapting Iris Murdoch’s The Italian Girl. She’s a board member of the International Armenian Literary Alliance, focusing on translation projects, and of Azad Archives.
Naneh Hovhannisyan is an Armenian-born researcher and writer of book reviews and personal essays. She is interested in history, memory, and belonging. Her work has been published by EVN Report, WritersMosaic, the Cambridge Review of Books, and others. Naneh co-edited the 2024 special issue of Wasafiri Magazine,Armenia(n)s: Elevation.
Armenia(n)s: Elevation Contributors
Dr. Jesse Arlen is the director of the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center at the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America. His research focuses on medieval literature and religious culture. He is also a published writer and translator of Western Armenian poetry and critical and creative prose.
Eddie Arnavoudian has been passionate about literature, history, and politics, since the mid-1990s when he remastered the wonderful Armenian language. Across two decades and more, he has contributed comments and evaluations that have been published on The Critical Corner which is an integral element of the hugely valuable Groong/Armenian News Network founded and edited by Asbed Bedrossian.
Olivia Katrandjian is a writer and journalist published in The New York Times, Oxford Review of Books, Ms., and elsewhere. Her fiction was listed for Luxembourg’s National Literary Prize, the Bristol and Cambridge Short Story Prizes, and the Oxford-BNU Award. She is the founder of the International Armenian Literary Alliance.
Lola Koundakjian is a writer, editor and translator, who honed her skills at the Ararat Literary Quarterly. She runs the Dead Armenian Poet’s Society, and the online Armenian Poetry Project. Her book The Moon in the Cusp of my Hand won the Minas and Kohar Tololyan Prize in Contemporary Literature.
Nancy Kricorian is the author of four novels about post-genocide Armenian diaspora experience, including her forthcoming book The Burning Heart of the World, which focuses on an Armenian family in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War. Her poems and essays have been published in The Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly, The Markaz Review, Parnassus, Wasafiri, Minnesota Review, and other journals. She lives in New York.
Christopher Millis’s books of poetry include The Handsome Shackles and The Dark of the Sun, translations from the Italian of Umberto Saba. The former art critic for The Boston Phoenix, his Off Broadway productions include the libretto for Jean Erdman’s dance opera The Shining House and Garbage Boy.
Margarit Ordukhanyan is a New York-based scholar and translator of poetry and prose from her native Armenian and Russian into English. Ordukhanyan is 2023 National Endowment of the Arts Translation Fellow, and one of the two recipients of 2023 Israelyan Translation Grant from International Armenian Literary Alliance.
Thomas Toghramadjian is a translator, deacon, and scholar of modern Armenian literature with degrees from Boston College and Yerevan State University. He received a 2023 IALA Israelyan Translation Grant for his forthcoming English translation of Yeghishe Charents’s novel Land of Nayiri. A repatriate to Armenia since 2019, he currently lives in Lori Province.
Taline Voskeritchian’s prose and translations have appeared in the London Review of Books, The Nation, Bookforum, Words without Borders, Journal of Palestine Studies, The Markaz Review, Jadaliyya, and other publications. She has taught university courses in Boston and Yerevan, and conducted translation seminars for the Palestine Festival of Literature.
Guest Reader
Hovsep Markarian is a cultural manager, language teacher, and storyteller with a background of over ten years in diverse nonprofit managerial roles as well as journalism. He is passionate about and has experience in multiple art forms including writing, standup, music and theater. He serves as the executive director of the International Armenian Literary Alliance.
The International Armenian Literary Alliance, the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research, and the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center will host Literary Lights 2025, our third annual reading series showcasing new works of literature by Armenian authors. Each event—held online or in-person—will feature a writer reading from their work, followed by a discussion with an interviewer and audience members.
Our launch event—featuring contributors and the editors of the recent Wasafiri issueArmenia(n)s—will take place on February 15th! Keep an eye the IALA website and socials for the exact dates of each event and Zoom links. Read along with the series by purchasing titles at IALA’s Bookshop storefront.
“Wasafiri: Armenia(n)s – Elevation” by Tatevik Ayvazyan and Naneh V Hovhannisyan
From poetry and fiction to thought-provoking book reviews, art, life writing and in-depth interviews, this landmark edition is a rich tapestry of modern Armenian voices. It offers readers a profound and eloquent exploration of the human condition through meditations on the Armenian language, culture, and identity. Featured contributors include award-winners such as Chris Bohjalian, Nancy Kricorian, and many more.
Returning to the fabular tone of Zabelle, her popular first novel, Kricorian conjures up the lost worlds and intergenerational traumas that haunt a family in permanent exile. Leavened with humor and imbued with the timelessness of a folktale, The Burning Heart of the World is a sweeping saga that takes readers on an epic journey from the mountains of Cilicia to contemporary New York City.
A thrilling collection of essays converging on themes of natural history, deep/queer ecology, philosophy of science, climate grief, and more-than-human belonging. Wide-ranging, richly observant, and full of surprise, Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature will open your eyes and change how you look at the world around you.
In this deeply moving debut, a close-knit Armenian American family grapples with the aftermath of losing one of their own. Aram Mrjoian’s Waterline: A Novel explores the complex beauty of diaspora, the weight of inherited trauma, and the echoes of the Genocide on contemporary Armenian life.
With Nostalgia for the Future: New and Selected Poems, 1984-2023, award-winning poet Gregory Djanikian returns to the literary scene with a collection that spans and celebrates his prolific career.
To Say With Passion: Why Am I Here? by Tenny Arlen
Tenny Arlen’s book of posthumous Armenian poetry, Կիրքով ըսելու՝ ինչո՞ւ հոս եմ (ARI Literature Foundation, 2021) is among the first books of creative literature written in Armenian by an American-born author. For the most part written during the author’s years at UCLA (2011-2013), the poetry of Tenny Arlen represents not only a new phenomenon but a new voice in Modern Armenian literature. At the request of many, a bilingual edition of the book, featuring the author’s own English-language translations of her poetry, lightly edited by the poet’s brother, Dr. Jesse Arlen.
The poetry of Tenny Arlen (1991–2015) was recently featured in the LAdige Review, the home of “California Poets” an ongoing online anthology and interview series conceived in 2020 by David Garyan.
Featured alongside the work of other California poets are 10 poems by Tenny Arlen, 8 from her book Կիրքով ըսելու՝ ինչո՞ւ հոս եմ (To Say with Passion: Why Am I Here?) (Yerevan: ARI Literature Foundation, 2021). The poems from the book appear in Armenian with the author’s own English-language translations. Additionally, 2 previously unpublished poems in English appear here for the first time.
Following the poems is an interview with the late poet’s brother, Zohrab director Dr. Jesse Arlen, on Tenny’s life and work. You may read the poems and interview by following this link to LAdige Review.
The Zohrab Information Center is hosting a Գրաբար reading course, “Medieval Armenian Poetry,” on Mondays 2:00–4:00pm ET via Zoom from January 13th to March 31st. Those unable to attend live can have access to the course materials and recordings of the sessions by registering via the Zoom registration linked below.
The course will be taught by Dr. Jesse Arlen with poetic texts chosen from the rich treasury of medieval Armenian literature. Writers include the 8th-century female hymn composers Khosrovidukht Goghtnatsi and Sahakdukht Siwnetsi, as well as Anania of Narek and St. Gregory of Narek, Gregory Magistros, St. Nersess Shnorhali, and others.
It is recommended that participants already be familiar with the basics of Classical Armenian grammar or have reading and writing knowledge of Modern Armenian in order to benefit from the course.
To register for the course, click here. For questions about the course, send an email to: zohrabcenter@armeniandiocese.org.
On Thursday, January 16th at 7:00pm PT / 10:00pm ET, Dr. Jesse Arlen will give a presentation hosted by the Hamazkayin Western Region Literary Unit on St. Nersess Shnorhali and the recently published book by co-authors Jesse Arlen and Matthew Sarkisian Odes of St. Nersess the Graceful: Annotated Translation (New York: Tarkmaneal Press, 2024).
Please register for this online event, whose proceedings will take place primarily in Armenian, at this link.
