Candidates Sought for Tololyan Prize in Contemporary Literature

The Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural Society of Eastern United States is pleased to solicit submissions for the third annual Minas and Kohar Tölölyan Prize in Contemporary Literature.

As with last year, two prizes, one for the Armenian language submissions and one for the English language submissions, will be awarded as the winners of the Minas and Kohar Tölölyan Prize in Contemporary Literature.

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 will recognize 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. In this expanded understanding, poetry, short stories, novels and drama are all included, but so are works of creative non-fiction, a genre that includes memoirs, as well as personal, descriptive and literary critical essays. Representatives of all 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 inaugural prize was won in 2013 by translator Christopher Atamian, while fiction writer Aida Zilelian and poet Arto Payaslian (Vaun) shared the prize in 2014.

The primary purpose of the prizes is to encourage and offer recognition through the award and through 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.

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

The jury judging all submissions will consist of Dr. Sima Aprahamian (Montreal), Dr. Vartan Matiossian (New York/New Jersey), Mr. Gourgen Arzoumanian (California), Mr. Yervant Kotchounian (California), and Ms. Anoush Agnerian (Montreal). Dr. Khachig Tölölyan is rotating off the jury this year and is being replaced by Ms. Agnerian. Hamazkayin Eastern USA is very grateful to Dr. Tölölyan for his leadership and stewardship of the prize over the past years. Mr. Kotchunian will assume the operational responsibilities of the committee, where he has been a key contributor for the past two years.

The Prizes will be announced at Hamazkayin's Annual Pan Gathering in May of 2015. All submissions must be sent electronically to tololyan_award@hamazkayin-usa.org as a PDF file by January 31, 2015. All submissions must be accompanied by the Tololyan Prize Application found online at http://bit.ly/167vSsM. 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 2013 or 2014. Recent work that has yet to be published may also be submitted.