Kevork Ajemian
| Kevork Ajemian | |
|---|---|
Գէորգ Աճեմեան
|
|
| Born |
May 23, 1932 Manbij, Syria |
| Died | December 27, 1998 (aged 66) Lyon, France |
| Occupation | Novelist, Writer, Journalist and Public activist |
| Genre | Realist |
| Notable works | A Speech for the Road, Ruling Over the Ruins |
Kevork Vartani Ajemian (Adjemian) (May 23, 1932 – December 27, 1998) was a prominent ethnic Armenian writer, journalist, novelist, theorist and public activist, and long-time publisher of the Beirut-based literary, artistic and general publication Spurk. Ajemian was a co-founder of the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) military organization.
Ajemian was born in Manbij, near Aleppo, Syria, into a family of survivors of the Armenian Genocide, originally 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 literary magazines.
A representative of the new generation of Armenian Diasporan writers of the 1960s, he wrote both in Armenian and in English, his books were published in Lebanon, USSR and United States. 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". As a novelist he experimented with modern forms and postsurrealist techniques. 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". 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.
According to Kari S. Neely, Ajemian's writings in both Armenian and English are more like philosophical tracks than fiction and his "writing style, perhaps like his lifestyle, is aggressive and direct, never mincing words". They overtly deal with themes of diaspora's identity. In his A Perpetual Path novel Ajemian points the finger "inwardly to the Armenian people, blaming them for their past calamities". Even the violence is necessary to assert your rights, because no one is going to give them to you willingly.
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Wikipedia