By Karine Aghajanyan

Introducing Armenians to the contemporary American literary scene plus a bit of Turkish-Armenian diplomacy

Peter Balakian was one of the five contemporary award winning American writers and poets who hosted a public reading at Yerevan’s American University of Armenia on October 22 – the culmination  of a literary tour of Armenia   to introduce Armenians to the contemporary American literary scene.

The five writers - Gish Jen, Mary Hickman, Peter Balakian, Chris Merrill and Gregory Orfalea –read from their works and explained the contextual background that compelled them to write the work in question. 

The mostly young and enthusiastic audience, many students and budding writers, engaged the five American writers in a lively Q&A session that followed.

Of the five, only Balakian has been to Armenia before and told me that he has read a number of Armenian classic writers, such as Yeghishe Charents, Siamanto and Paruyr Sevak, in translation. The others said they had familiarized themselves with the current literary scene during the tour.  

Whether or not they had adequate time to do so, given their busy tour schedule, is another matter. Nevertheless, they told me that they were able to meet and talk with various Armenian writers at the seminars, readings, discussions that were organized along the way.  

The public reading entitled, “Reading in Armenia: American Writers on Tour”, was hosted by the AUA’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences in collaboration with the Armenian Literature Foundation, the U.S. Embassy in Armenia, and the International Writing Program (IWP) at the University of Iowa.

Every year, the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program at the University of Iowa organizes a reading tour to a country or region not known for having close literary ties with contemporary America.

In addition to imparting writing skills, the International Writing Program also pursues a non-literary objective – facilitating the normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia.

In cooperation with the American Embassy in Armenia and the State University of Iowa, the five writers were chosen to participate in public readings in Armenia after participating in public readings in Turkey.

“They were very impressed with Turkish writers; they also had a meeting with journalists from Agos, a Turkish-Armenian journal based in Istanbul, as well as with the Hrant Dink foundation, which is promoting cooperation between Armenia and Turkey with various exchange programs,” said Armenian Literature Foundation CEO Arevik Ashkharoyan. 

These writers are trying to understand why there is no room for negotiations and cooperation between the two countries, even though they have   meet writers and other intellectuals in Armenia who believe it is in fact possible.

As mentioned during the welcome speech of a U.S. Embassy in Armenia representative, “writing is an important medium for promoting free speech and strengthening democracy in countries worldwide.”

Arevik Ashkharoyan said that the project will be on-going as there will be a group of five young writers from Turkey, Armenia as well as the United States who will meet in the U.S. for a two week program.

“They will be taught the art of writing and be given the opportunity to develop their work,” she commented.

During the Armenia tour, participants for an Armenian-Turkish writing residency program at the University of Iowa in the summer 2015 will have also been selected.

Bio's of the five American writers:

Gish Jen is an Asian-American contemporary writer, author of four novels, a collection of short stories and a volume of lectures. In 2013 Jen published her first non-fiction book entitled Tiger Writing: Art, Culture, and the Interdependent Self. Her first novel was Typical American. Her second novel Mona in the Promised Land features a Chinese-American adolescent who converts to Judaism. The Love Wife, her third novel, portrays an Asian American family with interracial parents with a biological child and an adopted child. Jen has published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and dozens of other periodicals and anthologies, as well as received more than 15 awards and honors.

Mary Hickman is an American writer and author of two forthcoming books of poetry, Wildlife (2015) and Rayfish (2017). In 2004 Mary Hickman decided to pursue her love for writing poetry and moved to Iowa City and became a part of the famous Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Her poems have been published in Colorado Review, Jubilat, the PEN Poetry Series, and featured in the Boston Review and The Arcadia Project anthology. Her scholarly work is forthcoming in Jacket2. She has lived in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Spain.

Peter Balakian is an Armenian-American poet, nonfiction writer and an author of five books of poems. Peter Balakian teaches at Colgate University and serves on the editorial board of Ararat Quarterly. Balakian has won the New Jersey Council for the Humanities Book Award and an award from the Academy of American Poets. The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response (2003) received the 2005 Raphael Lemkin Prize and was a New York Times Notable Book and New York Times and national best seller. Translations and editions of Balakian’s books appear in Armenian, Bulgarian, Dutch, German, Greek, Russian and Turkish. 

Chris Merrill is an American poet, essayist, journalist and translator. Currently he serves as director of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. In 2011 he was appointed to the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO. He’s received more than 10 awards in writing and poetry. He has published six collections of poetry, including Brilliant Water and Watch Fire.

Gregory Orfalea is an American poet and non-fiction writer, the author and editor of nine books and a short story collection. Orfalea has taught graduate and undergraduate programs at the Claremont College, Georgetown University and Westmont College, where he is currently director of the Center for California Studies. He teaches creative nonfiction, short story, literature of California, and Middle Eastern immigration literature.

Karine Aghajanyan is a Yerevan freelance journalist who focuses on human and women’s rights.  She’s a graduate of Political Science and European Law at the French University of Armenia. She’s received a certificate as a Human Rights Trainer for Young People from the Council of Europe.

Top Photo: Peter Balakian reading from his poem In Armenia-1987