The International Armenian Literary Alliance appointed two new members, Tamar Marie Boyadjian and Armen Davoudian, to its advisory board.
Tamar Marie Boyadjian is a professor, author, Western Armenian poet, editor, translator and medievalist. She is the first U.S. born author to publish a book of poetry in Western Armenian: “ինչ որ է ան է” (Yerevan: Andares, 2015). She is also the first writer of Western Armenian to produce a fantasy series in the language (Arpi Publishing, 2024). She is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies.
Boyadjian has also served as the main editor of two out of three extant volumes of contemporary Armenian literature in translation into English: “makukachu” (Ingnakir, 2017), and “unscripted: An Armenian Palimpsest” [Absinthe: World Literature in Translation] (University of Michigan Press, 2017). She was the recipient of the Sona Aroyan Book Prize for her monograph, “The City Lament: Jerusalem Across the Medieval Mediterranean” (Cornell University Press, 2018). Her forthcoming book is titled “Կաթիլ մը կին՝ անանուն, անքերթուած a drop of woman: unnamed, unwritten.” She currently teaches Western Armenian courses at Stanford University.
Armen Davoudian is the author of the “The Palace of Forty Pillars” (Tin House, US; Corsair, UK), long-listed for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry. and the translator, from Persian, of Hopscotch by Fatemeh Shams (Ugly Duckling Presse, US; Falscrhum, Germany). He grew up in Isfahan, Iran, and is a PhD candidate in English at Stanford University.
“I’m thrilled to welcome Dr. Tamar Boyadjian and Armen Davoudian to our advisory board, not only because they are talented authors who bring diverse backgrounds to our team, but also because they embody the spirit of our organization in their desire to give back to the Armenian literary community,” said IALA Founder Olivia Katrandjian.
The International Armenian Literary Alliance is a nonprofit organization launched in 2021 that supports and celebrates writers by fostering the development and distribution of Armenian literature in the English language. A network of Armenian writers and their champions, IALA gives Armenian writers a voice in the literary world through creative, professional, and scholarly advocacy. Learn more by visiting the website.
