Kevork Ajemian

Kevork Ajemian
Գևորգ Աճեմյան
Born May 23, 1932(1932-05-23)
Manbij, Syria
Died December 27, 1998(1998-12-27) (aged 66)
Lyon, France
Occupation Novelist, Writer, Journalist and Public activist
Genres Realist
Notable work(s) A Speech for the Road, Ruling Over the Ruins

Kevork Vartani Ajemian (Adjemian) (May 23, 1932, Manbij, Syria - December 27, 1998, Lyon, France) was a prominent[1] Armenian writer, journalist, novelist, theorist and public activist, one of the founders of Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) military organization.

Contents

Biography

Ajemian was born in Manbij, near Aleppo, Syria in a family of Armenian Genocide survivors from Sasun. He studied in Aleppo, then in 1952 he moved to Beirut. Ajemian graduated from the American University of Beirut in 1958. He was the editor of "The Daily Star" in Beirut, contributed to Shirak and Graser Armenian magazines.

A representative of the new generation of Armenian Diasporan writers of 1960's, he wrote both in Armenian and in English, his books were published in Lebanon, USSR and USA. Ajemian "has been acclaimed as a powerful intellectual voice in Armenian freedom movements as his works express the longing, rootlessness, and despair of diasporan peoples everywhere".[2] As a novelist he experimented with modern forms and postsurrealist techniques.[3] According to "The Book Buyer's Guide" (1969), in his first English novel Symphony in Discord, Ajemian, "a well-known Armenian author takes a look and a laugh at life in an unusually provocative study".[4] His "Ruling over the Ruins" novel is a love story of a bright young Irish journalist and an aging Armenian lawyer marooned together in war-ravaged Beirut.

He was one of the founders of ASALA, developed the policy of organization. One of the most famous novels of Ajemian, "The Descendants of Milky Way" ("Hartkoghi zharankortnere"), is dedicated to the life of the Armenian youth in Lebanon of 1970's. In another novel by Ajemian, "A Time for Terror" (1997), the story concerns an attempt to assassinate the head of the Armenian Liberation Army in 1980's Beirut. In 1997 the book was discussed at New York radio.[5]

In 1975-1989 Ajemian edited the Spurk Journal, in 1979 he took part of the First Armenian Congress Organizing Committee (Paris). He died in Lyon, France.

In 1999, a collection of the best journalistic works of Ajemian was published.

Selected bibliography

In English

In Armenian

References

  1. ^ Kevork Ajemian, Prominent Contemporary Writer and Surviving Member of Triumvirate Which Founded ASALA, Dies in Beirut, Lebanon // The Armenian Reporter, 01-02-1999
  2. ^ Ruling Over the Ruins, by Kevork Ajemian, Amazon Editorial Review
  3. ^ Encyclopedia of world literature in the 20th century, by Leonard S. Klein, Steven Serafin, Walter D. Glanze, 1993, ISBN 0804431353. p. 121
  4. ^ The Book Buyer's Guide, 1969, p. 38
  5. ^ New York Magazine, Nov 17, 1997, Vol. 30, No. 44, p. 142
Founders
Hagop Hagopian • James Karnusian • Kevork Ajemian
Prominent members
Attacks

External links