ARMENIAN-AMERICAN AUTHOR SITS DOWN FOR Q & A
By Phyllis Sides
Journal Times, WI
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Oct 22 2007
RACINE – The Armenian experience told through the words of 17
first-generation Armenian-American writers is documented in a newly
released anthology edited by Racine native David Kherdian.
"Forgotten Bread: First-Generation Armenian American Writers" includes
the writing of William Saroyan, Michael J. Arlen, A.I.
Bezzerides and Kherdian, who are among the more well-known writers
in the anthology.
Writing is a tool many young Armenians used to maintain their
identities while becoming American and one they used to deal with the
pain of the past, Kherdian said. Kherdian is the author of more than
60 books of poetry and prose. His work has been translated into 13
languages and published in 12 countries around the world. He is the
editor of nine anthologies, in addition to the journals "Ararat,"
an Armenian American literary journal; "Forkroads: A Journal of
Ethnic American Literature," and "Stopinder: A Gurdjieff Journal for
Our Time."
On Wednesday, Kherdian took a few minutes to share his thoughts and
feelings about "Forgotten Bread" with his hometown newspaper.
Does the Anthology’s title have a special meaning?
It is taken from a poem by one of the poets in the book; an excerpt
appears on back of the dust jacket. It denotes something lost and
then found, perhaps something one did not know one had until its
absence sends an echo through one’s life. Everyone seems to love
the title, perhaps because its ambiguity resonates in each of us,
like the question: What does life mean?
How and why did you choose the authors included?
I had read all of them through the years, knew most of them personally,
and William Saroyan, the one international figure in the book, was
my mentor and friend.
Growing up in Racine, I felt cut off from the world of art, and for
years my yearning to be an artist myself had to be kept under wraps.
When some of these writers began publishing, in the late ’50s –
and they were not much older than I was then, I could see that the
possibility of an Armenian kid living in the hinterlands could also
possibly attain something of what they had achieved.
It was a long shot, but without their presence it wouldn’t have been
even that. And so when I moved to San Francisco after my final exam
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I soon became friends with
the beat writers there, including Allen Ginsberg, Richard Brautigan,
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, et al, and then out of the blue I began writing
poetry myself, when I thought all along I would be a writer of prose
fiction.
This impelled me to search even deeper into my roots because it was
plain to me that my writing belonged to an older tradition, and so
other writers of Armenian descent became my connection, linking for me
the past with the present. It was natural that one day I would compile
this anthology, which, by the way, begins with three writers from the
old country who came here both before and after the genocide and made
the decision to write in English, thereby becoming Armenian-American
writers of the first generation.
When you selected them, did you have a specific goal in mind?
I wanted to preserve writing that I knew with certainty was going to
perish, with possibly a few – very few – exceptions. I didn’t want
this to happen, especially because during these writers’ lifetimes
the exigencies of life were such that their compatriots had little
time for art, and could not see that it might hold some kind of value
and importance for them.
As the anthology grew in my mind and on paper, I began to realize that
I was going to bring something very new to the table, from something
very old and forgotten. Because of this anthology, Armenian-American
literature is now born and is part of the American canon. We are a
distinctive strain, or sensibility if you like, that brings something
very unique to the body of American literature, and that is no small
thing, especially for a minority as tiny as ours.