Chris Atamian wins the inaugural Tölölyan prize in contemporary literature
Published: Sunday May 26, 2013
Christopher Atamian.
WATERTOWN, MASS. – The Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural
Society of Eastern United States is pleased to announce the winner of
the inaugural Minas and Kohar Tölölyan Prize in Contemporary
Literature. Mr. Christopher Atamian was chosen as the winner for his
translation of Nigoghos Sarafian’s The Bois de Vincennes.
Christopher Atamian is a translator, writer, and director. He produced
the OBIE Award-winning play Trouble in Paradise in 2006 and was
included as an invited artist to the 2009 Venice Biennale for his
video Desire. His short films and videos have screened throughout the
world and he publishes regularly in such publications as The
Huffington Post and The New York Times and was for several years the
dance critic for the now-defunct New York Press. He has written one
novel, Speaking French, and is at work on several commercial musicals
and film scripts.
In his activities as a translator, Atamian has translated six books
from French and Western Armenian into English, including Nigoghos
Sarafian’s The Bois de Vincennes. Among the other books he has
translated, three have been in Armenian studies for the Middle Eastern
Studies Department at Columbia University: Krikor Beledian’s Fifty
Years of Armenian Literature in France, and two books by Marc
Nichanian: Literature and Catastrophe and The Armenian Language
Throughout History. He also translated Philippe Delma’s The Rosy
Future of War (The Free Press) and is currently at work on Denis
Donikian’s Vidures/Offal, an award-winning novel published on Actes
Sud.
Mr. Atamian has worked in senior positions for leading media companies
including ABC, Ogilvy Interactive and JP Morgan’s marketing division.
He received his BA from Harvard University, his MBA from Columbia
Business School and is also an alumnus of USC Film School. He has been
a Fulbright, Bronfman and Gulbenkian Scholar. Atamian has been active
in the Armenian community since he was a teenager and has served on
the Board of the Columbia Center for Armenian Studies and as Executive
Director of the Armenia Fund USA. He was the elected President two
years running of AGLA NY and currently sits on this organization’s
Board of Trustees.
Named after one of the major Armenian literary critics of the second
half of the Twentieth century and his wife, a devoted teacher of that
literature for decades, the annually awarded prize recognizes the work
produced by talented writers working in North America. The prize is
intended to encourage new work in all the major genres of literary
production, as they are currently understood in North America,
including poetry, drama, fiction, memoir, travel writing and other
forms of creative non-fiction, as well as translation. Works in
Armenian, English, French and Spanish are considered, as long as the
authors are of Armenian ancestry, and/or the work has an Armenian
theme or revolves around an Armenian topic.
The primary purpose of the Prize is to encourage and offer recognition
through the award and through the ensuing publicity those who wish to
write about Armenian themes and topics. There is also a financial
award of $2,500 associated with the prize, made possible through the
generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Edward and Vergine Misserlian of San
Francisco, CA.
The jury judging all submissions consists of Dr. Sima Aprahamian
(Montreal), Dr. Vartan Matiossian (New York/New Jersey), Mr. Gourgen
Arzoumanian (California), Mr. Yervant Kotchounian (California) and
Prof. Khachig Tölölyan (Connecticut).
The Prize was announced at Hamazkayin’s Annual Pan Gathering on May 4,
2013 in Boston.
The Eastern USA region of 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. The
Eastern United States region, headquartered in Massachusetts, consists
of eight chapters in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, New Jersey, New York,
Philadelphia, Providence and Washington, DC.
We aim to empower our chapters and membership to nurture and promote
Armenian arts and culture. Given our millennia long history, we are
cognizant of the dynamic nature of the concept of identity. To that
end, we strive to maintain our cultural identity and heritage and are
committed to grow and further the contribution of the Armenian culture
to the complex tapestry of world civilizations.