Peter Balakian

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Peter Balakian

Peter Balakian ( Armenian Փիթեր Պալագեան ; * 1951 in Teaneck , New Jersey ) is an Armenian-American writer and scientist.

Life

Balakian grew up in Teaneck and Tenafly , New Jersey, and received his BA in 1973 from Bucknell University. In 1980 he received a Ph.D. from Brown University. in American civilization. Peter Balakian now teaches at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York , where he is Professor of the Humanities and holds the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Chair in English.

Balakian's memory book Black Dog of Fate (1997) was published in German in 2000 under the title The Dogs of Ararat . In it he describes his adapted childhood and youth in a typical American suburb settlement in New Jersey. It was only as an adult and after the death of his Armenian grandmother, a survivor of the genocide of 1915 , the author was aware of its Armenian identity aware and explored gradually the story of his ancestors from the Ottoman Empire , almost all victims of the Armenian genocide has become were. Balakian describes this process of awareness traceable and are by the poignant depiction of family destiny a harrowing depiction of the genocide of 1915. It was in the United States among others, the Martha Albrand Prize for Memoir of PEN excellent.

The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response was published in 2003 . This non-fiction book gives a comprehensive account of the Armenian genocide , largely based on the US sources. At the same time, Balakian addresses the broad human rights movement in the USA , which formed in the wake of the Hamid massacre in the 1890s and which raised millions of dollars in aid for the persecuted Armenians up until the 1920s. - The Burning Tigris was awarded the Raphael Lemkin Prize in 2005 as the best publication on genocide in the last two years.

Peter Balakian first became known as an author with volumes of poetry. The most recent publication was June-tree: New and Selected Poems 1974–2000. In Armenia he was awarded the Surp Mesrop - Surp Sahag Order in 2005 by the Armenian Apostolic Catholicos Karekin II .

A prominent member of the Balakian family is Bishop Krikor Balakian , a great-uncle of Peter Balakian. He was arrested on “Red Sunday” , April 24, 1915, along with hundreds of other Armenian leaders and deported to Çankırı together with Komitas Vardapet and around 400 other intellectuals, dignitaries and artists . However, he was able to flee and later reported in the book Haj Goghgotan (German: Armenisches Golgotha ) of his experiences during the genocide. Peter Balakian and Aris Sevag translated this important testimony about the genocide from Armenian into English, where it was published in 2009.

For Ozone Journal , Balakian received the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Sealing.

Works

Poems
  • Father Fisheye (1979)
  • Sad Days of Light (1983)
  • Reply From Wilderness Island (1988)
  • Dyer's Thistle (1996)
  • June-Tree: New and Selected Poems, 1974-2000 (2001)
  • Ziggurat (2010)
Non-fiction
  • Theodore Roethke's Far Fields (1989)
  • The Ararat Dogs (1997)
  • The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response (2003)
  • Armenian Golgotha (2009)
Translations
  • Bloody News From My Friend , by Siamanto , translated with Nevart Yaghlian, Introduction by Balakian (1996)
editor
  • Ambassador Morgenthau's Story , Preface by Robert Jay Lifton, Introduction by Roger Smith, Afterword by Henry Morgenthau III. (2003)
  • Limited Editions (all from The Press of Appletree Alley, Lewisburg, PA)
  • Declaring Generations , linoleum engravings by Barnard Taylor (1981)
  • Invisible Estate , woodcuts by Rosalyn Richards (1985)
  • The Oriental Rug , linoleum engravings by Barnard Taylor (1986)
  • The Children's Museum at Yad Vashem , illustrated by Colleen Shannon (1996)

Recordings

  • Poetry on Record, 1888-2006: 98 Poets Read their Work (Tennyson, Whitman, Yeats, through Modernism to present. Four-CD set). Balakian reads “The History of Armenia”

Web links

Commons : Peter Balakian  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Balakian: The dogs from Ararat. An Armenian childhood in America. Paul Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna 2000. ISBN 3-552-04951-7
personal data
SURNAME Balakian, Peter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Փիթեր Պալագեան (Armenian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Armenian-American writer and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Teaneck , New Jersey , United States