Sevan Nişanyan Awarded Saroyan Prize

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Armenian Diaspora Ministry has given William Saroyan prize to imprisoned Sevan Nişanyan.

Presentation ceremony of the William Saroyan prize was held at Cezayir Assembly Hall in İstanbul on September 23, 2016.

The prize was presented to Sevan Nişanyan’s attorney Ergin Cinmen by independent MP Baron Aragats Akhoyan to be given to Nişanyan.

About Sevan Nişanyan

Sevan Nișanyan (born 21 December 1956) is a Turkish-Armenian intellectual, travel writer, researcher, linguist and polymath.

An author of a number of books ("The Wrong Republic", "The Etymological Dictionary" and others), Nisanyan was awarded the Ayşe Nur Zarakolu Liberty Award of the Turkish Human Rights Association in 2004 for his contributions to greater freedom of speech.

He is also known for his work to restore a semi-derelict village near Turkey’s Aegean coast.

Nișanyan was handed a cumulative jail sentence of 16 years and 7 months after he criticized the government’s attempts to prohibit criticism of the prophet Muhammad, in a blog entry in September 2012. He has been held in a maximum-security Turkish prison since January 2, 2014.

There has been an online petition started by his friend and a prominent mathematician Ali Nesin demanding a solution for the Sevan Nişanyan case.

About William Saroyan

William Saroyan (August 31, 1908 – May 18, 1981) was an American novelist, playwright, and short story writer. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940, and in 1943 won the Academy Award for Best Story for the film adaptation of his novel The Human Comedy.

An Armenian American, Saroyan wrote extensively about the Armenian immigrant life in California. Many of his stories and plays are set in his native Fresno. Some of his best-known works are The Time of Your Life, My Name Is Aram and My Heart's in the Highlands.

He is recognized as "one of the most prominent literary figures of the mid-20th century. Stephen Fry describes Saroyan as "one of the most underrated writers of the [20th] century." Fry suggests that "he takes his place naturally alongside Hemingway, Steinbeck and Faulkner." (NV/TK)