Hamazkayin Announces 2nd Annual Tölölyan Prize in Contemporary Literature

The Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural Society of Eastern United States recently began to accept submissions for its second annual Minas and Kohar Tölölyan Prize in Contemporary Literature. This year, two prizes will be awarded—one for Armenian-language submissions and one for English-language submissions. 

Named after one of the major Armenian literary critics of the second half of the 20th 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 of 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 all included, along with works of creative non-fiction, a genre that includes memoirs, as well as personal, descriptive, and literary critical essays. Representatives of any of these genres may be offered as candidates for the prize. Work in Armenian and English will be 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 prizes is to encourage and offer recognition, through the award and the ensuing publicity, for those who wish to write about Armenian themes and topics. There will also be a modest financial award of $1,500 each for the Armenian- and English-language awards.

The jury judging all submissions is comprised of Dr. Sima Aprahamian (Montreal), Dr. Vartan Matiossian (New York/New Jersey), Gourgen Arzoumanian (California), Yervant Kotchounian (California), and Prof. Khachig Tölölyan (Connecticut).

All submissions must be sent by Jan. 31, 2014 either electronically by e-mail to tololyan_award@hamazkayin-usa.org as a PDF file (highly encouraged), or by mail to the Hamazkayin Tololyan Prize Committee at 80 Bigelow Ave, Watertown, MA 02472. All submissions must be accompanied by the Tololyan Prize Application, found online at http://bit.ly/167vSsM. (Both the Armenian and English versions of the rules and regulations of the award can also be found at the above link.) Submissions may consist of work published either in 2012 or 2013. Recent work that has yet to be published may also be submitted. The prizes will be announced at Hamazkayin’s Annual Pan Gathering in May 2014.

This award has been made possible by the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Edward and Vergine Misserlian of San Francisco, California.