Narine Abgaryan, author, To Go On Living
A conversation between the author and her translators, Margarit Ordukhanyan and Zara Torlone
 

This event coincides with the annual commemoration of the 1915 Armenian Genocide 

Narine Abgaryan is a contemporary Russian-Armenian writer. She recently left Moscow after speaking out against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Born in Armenia, she moved to Moscow to pursue a writing career and made her debut with her first short story “Manunia.”  Since then, Abgaryan has published numerous works and was a recipient of several prestigious awards and grants; in 2015, she was one of two winners of the top Russian literary prize of Alexander Grin. 

Abgaryan’s stories are whimsical, populated by Armenian characters who inhabit small corners of their native land, leading unassuming lives. However, the stories are compelling in their appeal to universal concerns that go beyond any particular geography and defy temporality.  In her stories, Abgrayan invites her readers to contemplate the vulnerability of the human condition in the midst of war, shows us that love can be discovered in the most unexpected places, that foe and enemy are hard to tell apart, and that victory is sometimes indistinguishable from defeat.

After the event, there will be an informal Q & A session, followed by a book signing of Abgaryan’s latest work, To Go On Living. 

Free copies of the book available to the first 25 attendees.