ForeWord Reviews has announced the winners of the Book of the Year Awards. The winning authors were honored at a ceremony during the American Library Association Conference in New Orleans. They were selected by a panel of librarian and bookseller judges.

Los Angeles author Armen Melikian's Journey to Virginland: Epistle I, a novel that proposes an original vision of human transformation, is one of the four winners in the highly competitive Literary Fiction category. It received the only "Honorable Mention" from a list of 14 finalists. Journey to Virginland is published by Two Harbors Press of the Hillcrest Publishing Group.

"This is the third prize Journey to Virginland has won over the last three months," said Emily Weiss, marketing director at Two Harbor's Press. "Journey to Virginland recently won the Pinnacle Book Achievement Award for Best Fiction, and was recognized as one of the top books in Humor/Comedy by the Next Generation Indie Book Awards."

ForeWord's founder and publisher, Victoria Sutherland, spoke at the awards ceremony and announced the winners: "Today's celebration of our Award winners and finalists is the culmination of a very intense but rewarding year-long effort by everyone on staff at ForeWord Reviews. All of our editors become invested in certain genres, titles, and authors, and the award ceremony is very emotional."

Leia Menlove, a distinguished member of ForeWord's review team, describes Journey to Virginland as "an engrossing, brilliantly crafted read; a searing commentary on the world and its inhabitants." Menlove adds, "Melikian's prodigious writing talent and ability to show the world's history in a different air creates an entertaining ride into warring religions, warring cultures, warring sexes, and the histories and raison d'etre behind each."

Journey to Virginland is in certain respects reminiscent of the novelistic tapestries of James Joyce, Thomas Pynchon, Umberto Eco, and others. With its ebullient style, innovative language, and kaleidoscopic yet highly calibrated thematic range, it is an extraordinary example of a literary revolution in the making.