ARMENIAN LITERARY STAR WINS RUSSIAN AWARD

Voice of Russia
April 14 2010

Mariam Petrosian, a young Armenian writer, has won the "Russian Award"
for her book "The House, Where…".

The Russian Award literary competition was established for foreign
authors writing in Russian. Although she is hardly known in our
country, Russians have already got acquainted with Mariam Petrosian’s
book. In 2009, the novel was shortlisted for the "Big Book Prize",
the Russian national award for literature. An uncommon decision, given
that it is the first book by Mariam Petrosian, who is a cartoonist,
not a professional writer.

It took her 10 year to finish the book, which she dedicated to
handicapped children living in boarding schools. She told the Voice
of Russia how she chose this subject:

"It was the economically unstable situation in Armenia in the 90s that
gave me the impulse to write. When facing a boring life, people can
chose a wide range of activities, which they have never been engaged
in. Writing first became my hobby".

The physical disabilities of the novel’s central characters naturally
result in their isolation from the world. A house is a kind of
protective covering for these children, not accepted by their peers
due to their peculiar individuality. Literary critics are sure that
humanity is inevitably moving towards this model of a new world, where
moral problems will fade into insignificance. There is a conflict of
strength and weakness, solitude and the "herd instinct", simplicity
and complexity… Mariam Petrosian looks upon these problems with a
different eye, as compared to her literary characters:

"For me, a house is a utopian place with the cult of friendship and
a closed community, a place where family units are built. A house
symbolizes youth, while outside we will face an adult life. The
problem is to find a pathway from children to grown-ups".

The jury of the "Russian Award" chose Mariam Petrosian as the winner
of the competition. Sergei Chuprinin, the chairman of the jury,
has this to say:

"We were deeply impressed by the way the author treated the novel’s
tragic plot. The complex composition form of this undoubtedly vivid
book serves to reveal the sincerity of both the characters and the
young author".

Among other winners of the "Russian Award" are US-based Maria
Timatkova, Alisher Niyazov residing in Kyrgyzstan and Moldavian
philologist and poet Olesya Rudyagina.