'''Shushan Avagyan''' (born 1976) is an Armenian author, translator and Associate professor at the American University of Armenia's College of Humanities and Social Sciences, where she is the coordinator of the Graduate Certificate in Translation Program.<ref name="Markarian">{{Cite web |last=Markarian |first=Hovsep |date=2024-02-04 |title=Shushan Avagyan |url=https://armenianliterary.org/shushan-avagyan/ |access-date=2026-01-19 |website=International Armenian Literary Alliance |language=en-US}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web |date=1 November 2024 |title=Dr. Shushan Avagyan Celebrates Two Literary Milestones |url=https://newsroom.aua.am/2024/11/01/dr-shushan-avagyan-two-literary-milestones/ |website=newsroom.aua}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=A Book, Untitled |url=https://awst-press.com/shop/a-book-untitled |access-date=2026-01-19 |website=Awst Press |language=en-US}}</ref>
Avagyan has translated into English a volume of Shushanik Kurghinian’s poetry, as well as works by Russian critics Boris Arvatov and Viktor Shklovsky.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Shushan Avagyan |url=https://people.aua.am/team_member/shushan-avagyan/ |website=people.aua}}</ref> Her articles and translations have been published in academic journals including: ''Contemporary Women's Writing'', ''The Review of Contemporary Fiction'', ''Asymptote,'' and ''The Los Angeles Review of Books''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Shushan Avagyan |url=https://wordswithoutborders.org/contributors/view/shushan-avagyan/ |access-date=2026-01-19 |website=Words Without Borders |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Shushan Avagyan |url=https://www.tiltedaxispress.com/new-page-2 |access-date=2026-01-19 |website=Tilted Axis Press |language=en-GB}}</ref> In 2003, she co-founded the Women's Resource Center in Yerevan with Lara Aharonian and Gohar Shahnazaryan.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2011-05-14 |title='Finding Zabel Yesayan' In NYC |url=http://www.mirrorspectator.com/2011/05/14/%E2%80%98finding-zabel-yesayan%E2%80%99-in-nyc/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170808193743/http://www.mirrorspectator.com/2011/05/14/%E2%80%98finding-zabel-yesayan%E2%80%99-in-nyc/ |archive-date=2017-08-08 |access-date=2026-01-19 |work=The Armenian Mirror-Spectator |language=en-US}}</ref>
Avagynan's debut novel, ''Girq-anvernagir'' (''A Book,'' ''Untitled''), was published in 2006. The English translation was a winner of the English PEN Translates Award in 2023.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |title=A Book, Untitled |url=https://www.tiltedaxispress.com/a-book-untitled |access-date=2026-01-19 |website=Tilted Axis Press |language=en-GB}}</ref>
== Early life == Avagynan was born in 1976 in Soviet Armenia. As a child, she lived in Zambia and Ethiopia with her parents, who taught there due to the Soviet Teach Abroad Program. After graduating from Khachik Dashtents School in Yerevan, she moved to Cyprus to study at the Melkonian Educational Institute in Nicosia. She received her undergraduate degree in studio art at Cedar Crest College, and her master's and doctoral degrees in English studies from Illinois State University.<ref name="Markarian"/>
== Awards ==
* 2023: English PEN Translates Award for ''A Book, Untitled<ref name=":2" />'' * 2024: MSA Translation Book Prize for ''A Book, Untitled''<ref name=":0" />
== Works ==
=== Novels === * ''Girq-anvernagir'', samizdat, 2006 ''(A Book, Untitled'', Awst Press, 2023; trans. Deanna Cachoian-Schanz) (''Libro senza nome'', Utopia, 2024; trans. Minas Lourian). {{ISBN|99930-4-583-7}} (Eastern Armenian); {{ISBN|978-1-911284-88-8}} (English); {{ISBN|979-12-80084-84-2}} (Italian).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Girk-Anvernagir – Abril Books |url=https://abrilbooks.com/product/girk-anvernagir/ |access-date=2026-01-19 |website=abrilbooks.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=A Book, Untitled |url=https://naasr.org/products/a-book-untitled |access-date=2026-01-19 |website=NAASR}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Shushan Avagyan – Writer(s) – Asymptote Blog |url=https://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/writer/shushan-avagyan/ |access-date=2026-01-19 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Libro senza nome – Utopia |url=https://utopiaeditore.com/prodotto/libro-senza-nome/ |access-date=2026-01-19 |language=it-IT}}</ref> * ''Queered: What’s to be done with Xcentric art?'' (co-author), the Queering Yerevan (QY) Collective, 2011<ref>{{Cite web |last=Boghossian |first=J. P. Der |date=2020-10-01 |title=Queered: What's To Be Done With Xcentric Art |url=https://queerarmenianlibrary.com/queered-whats-to-be-done-with-xcentric-art/ |access-date=2026-01-19 |website=The Queer Armenian Library |language=en-US}}</ref> * ''Zarubyani Kanayq'' ''(''with Lusine Talalyan'')'', samizdat, 2014.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-05-30 |title=Monograph/s |url=https://deannacachoian.net/monographs/ |access-date=2026-01-19 |website=Deanna Cachoian-Schanz |language=en}}</ref> * ''Violent Phenomena: 21 essays on Translation'', Titled Axis Press, 2021. {{ISBN|978-1-911284-78-9}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=Violent Phenomena: 21 Essays on Translation |url=https://www.tiltedaxispress.com/violent-phenomena |access-date=2026-01-19 |website=Tilted Axis Press |language=en-GB}}</ref>
=== Translations === * Shushanik Kurghinian, ''I want to live: Poems of Shushanik Kurghinian'', Armenian International Women's Association, 2005. {{ISBN|978-0-9648787-5-4}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=I Want to Live – Abril Books |url=https://abrilbooks.com/product/i-want-to-live/ |access-date=2026-01-19 |website=abrilbooks.com}}</ref> * Viktor Shklovsky, ''Energy of Delusion: A Book on Plot'', Dalkey Archive Press, 2007. {{ISBN|978-1-56478-426-1}}<ref name=":1" /> * Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, ''Dust'' (with Evgeny Pavlov, Thomas Epstein and Ana Lucic): Dalkey Archive Press, 2009. {{ISBN|978-1-56478-419-3}} * Viktor Shklovsky, ''Bowstring: On the Dissimilarity of the Similar'', Dalkey Archive Press, 2011. {{ISBN|978-1-56478-425-4}}<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Shklovsky |first1=Viktor |url=https://bookshop.org/p/books/bowstring-on-the-dissimilarity-of-the-similar-viktor-shklovsky/ce350dc2809f8371?ean=9781564784254&next=t |title=Bowstring: On the Dissimilarity of the Similar |date=2011-07-07 |publisher=Dalkey Archive Press |isbn=978-1-56478-425-4 |language=en-US}}</ref> * Viktor Shklovsky, ''A Hunt for Optimism'', Dalkey Archive Press, 2013. {{ISBN|978-1-56478-823-8}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Shklovsky |first=Viktor |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=94oewatd0G0C |title=A Hunt for Optimism |date=2013-01-03 |publisher=Dalkey Archive Press |isbn=978-1-56478-823-8 |language=en}}</ref> * Viktor Shklovsky, ''The Hamburg Score'', Dalkey Archive Press, 2017.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Shklovskiĭ |first=Viktor |url=http://archive.org/details/hamburgscore0000shkl |title=The Hamburg score |date=2017 |publisher=Victoria, TX : Dalkey Archive Press |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-1-62897-167-5}}</ref> * Boris Arvatov, ''Art and Production,'' Pluto Press, 2017. {{ISBN|978-0-7453-3736-4}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=Art and Production |url=https://www.plutobooks.com/product/art-and-production/ |access-date=2026-01-19 |website=Pluto Press |language=en-US}}</ref> * Hovhannes Tumanyan, ''Quatrains,'' 2019. {{ISBN|978-9939-858-13-5}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=Publications – Hovhannes Toumanian Museum |url=https://www.tumanyan.am/en/museum/publications/hovhannes-toumanian.-quatrians |access-date=2026-01-19 |website=www.tumanyan.am}}</ref> * Viktor Shklovsky, ''On the Theory of Prose'', Dalkey Archive Press, 2021. {{ISBN|978-1-56478-769-9}}<ref>{{Cite web |date=21 December 2021 |title=Shushan Avagyan Translates Viktor Shklovsky's Classic |url=https://newsroom.aua.am/2021/12/21/shushan-avagyan-translates-viktor-shklovskys-classic/ |website=newsroom.au}}</ref>
=== Articles === * ''(Un)Disciplining Traumatic Memory: Mission Orphanages and the Afterlife of Genocide in Micheline Aharonian Marcom’s The'' ''Daydreaming Boy'' (with Rebecca Saunders), Contemporary Women's Writing, 2010<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Saunders |first1=R. |last2=Avagyan |first2=S. |date=2010-11-01 |title=(Un)Disciplining Traumatic Memory: Mission Orphanages and the Afterlife of Genocide in Micheline Aharonian Marcom's The Daydreaming Boy |url=https://academic.oup.com/cww/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/cww/vpp036 |journal=Contemporary Women's Writing |language=en |volume=4 |issue=3 |pages=197–219 |doi=10.1093/cww/vpp036 |issn=1754-1484|url-access=subscription }}</ref> * ''Traumatic Infidelities: Translating the Literature of the Armenian Genocide'', 2012<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Avagyan |first=Shushan |date=2012-08-01 |title=Traumatic Infidelities: Translating the Literature of the Armenian Genocide |url=https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/disseng/1 |journal=Theses and Dissertations – English}}</ref>
== References == {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Avagyan, Shushan}} Category:1976 births Category:21st-century Armenian women writers Category:Armenian women novelists Category:Armenian women academics Category:Armenian translators Category:Armenian–English translators Category:Russian–English translators Category:Academic staff of the American University of Armenia Category:Cedar Crest College alumni Category:Illinois State University alumni Category:Living people