HAMAZKAYIN ANNOUNCES NEW MINAS AND KOHAR TOLOLYAN PRIZE IN CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE
Armenian Weekly
October 25, 2012
WATERTOWN, Mass.-The Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural
Society of the Eastern United States this week announced the
establishment of the Minas and Kohar Tololyan Prize in Contemporary
Literature. Named after one of the major Armenian literary critics of
the second half of the 20thcentury, and his wife, a devoted teacher of
that literature for decades, the annually awarded prize will recognize
the work produced by talented writers working in North America.
Minas and Kohar Tololyan The prize is intended to encourage new work
in the major genres of literary production, as they are currently
understood in North America. In this expanded understanding,
poetry, short stories, novels, and drama are included, as are works
of creative non-fiction-a genre that includes memoirs, as well as
personal, descriptive, and literary critical essays. Representatives
of these genres may be offered as candidates for the prize. Work in
Armenian, English, French, and Spanish will be considered, as long
as the authors are of Armenian ancestry, or the work has an Armenian
theme or revolves around an Armenian topic.
The primary purpose of the Tololyan Prize is to encourage and offer
recognition through the award and ensuing publicity to those who wish
to write about Armenian themes and topics.
The jury charged with judging the submissions is comprised of Dr. Sima
Aprahamian (Montreal), Dr. Vartan Matiossian (New York/New Jersey),
Gourgen Arzoumanian (California), Yervant Kotchounian (California)
and Prof. Khachig Tololyan (Connecticut).
The winner of the prize, and its modest financial award of $2,500, will
be announced at Hamazkayin’s Annual Pan Gathering in early May, with
the first award to be presented in Boston on May 2013. All submissions
must either be e-mailed to [email protected] as a PDF
file (highly encouraged) or in hard-copy format to the Hamazkayin
Tololyan Prize Committee, 80 Bigelow Ave, Watertown, MA 02472, by
Dec. 31, 2012.
Submissions may consist of work published either in 2011 or 2012.
Recent work that has yet to be published may also be submitted.
This award has been made possible by the generosity of Mr. and Mrs.
Edward and Vergine Misserlian of San Francisco, Calif.
The Eastern USA region of the Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and
Cultural Society, a 501 c (3) not for profit organization, constitutes
one of the branches of the worldwide Hamazkayin family, founded in
1928. Headquartered in Massachusetts, it consists of eight chapters
in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia,
Providence, and Washington, D.C.
To learn more, visit
hamazkayin-usa.org/main/HamazkayinEasternRegion.aspx.