"Armenian Memory, Writing Across the Borders: A Reading and Talk"

Fresno State's Armenian Studies Program and the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing present an author reading with Pulitzer-prize winning poet Peter Balakian. The on-campus event is supported by the College of Arts and Humanities. Featuring a Q&A and book signing with the author.

Balakian will read and discuss his poetry and prose with a focus on Armenian historical and cultural memory and disaporan imagination. In his many books of poems and his memoir Black Dog of Fate, Balakian has explored--in his distinct poetic form and elliptical language--traumatic intergenerational memory of the Armenian Genocide, as well as the power and beauty of Armenian culture: visual art, architecture, music, and Armenia’s dramatic, natural landscapes.

6 PM Reception; 7 PM Reading and Q&A
Monday, April 22, 2024
Reception in University Business Center gallery
Reading and Q&A in Alice Peters Auditorium (PB 191)

Free admission

Peter Balakian is the author of 8 books of poems and 4 books of prose and 3 collaborative translations and several edited books. Ozone Journal won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, Black Dog of Fate, a memoir won the 1998 PEN/Martha Albrand Prize for the Art of the Memoir, and was a best book of the year for the New York Times, the LA Times, and Publisher’s Weekly; The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response won the 2005 Raphael Lemkin Prize and was a New York Times Notable Book and a New York Times Best Seller. His collaborative translation of Grigoris Balakian’s Armenian Golgotha: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide was a Washington Post book of the year. Vice and Shadow: Essays on the Lyric Imagination, Poetry, Art, and Culture was published in 2016.

Balakian is the recipient of many awards and prizes and civic citations: the Pulitzer Prize, The Presidential Medal and the Movses Horanatsi Medal from the Republic of Armenia,  a Guggenheim Fellowship,  a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, The Spendlove Prize for Social Justice, Tolerance, and Diplomacy (recipients include President Carter); and The Emily Clark Balch Prize for poetry from the Virginia Quarterly Review. He has appeared widely on national television and radio 60 Minutes, PBS News Hour, ABC World News Tonight, Charlie Rose, CNN, C-SPAN, NPR, Fresh Air, etc) , and his work has been translated into a dozen languages  and foreign editions including Armenian, Arabic, Bulgarian, French, Dutch, Greek, German, Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Tamil, Turkish.  He is Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the Humanities, Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Colgate University.

Author website: https://www.peterbalakian.com/

Sponsor:
This event is supported by the Armenian Studies Program and the College of Arts and Humanities.

All attendees are strongly encouraged to wear a mask when indoors. Visit Covid.FresnoState.edu for current campus health updates.

Parking costs $5 in Lots P5 and P6, east of the Peters Business building. (Campus map) Parking permits are required and can be obtained at the lecture.

Livestream on the Armenian Studies YouTube channel: bit.ly/armenianstudiesyoutube

All participants are welcome. For disability related accommodations or access information, please contact barlowd@mail.fresnostate.edu. Requests should be made at least one week in advance of the event.