NORA NADJARIAN: November 2010

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Two Announcements and a Bottle of Champagne

I suppose the time has come to announce a couple of BRILLIANT things that have finally happened in my writing life:

1. My story "Kafkaesque" is soon to be published in Etchings 9. I have just seen the proofs and they look fantastic! I am proud and honoured that my story was selected by Etchings fiction editor Glenys Osborne, whose debut novel Come Inside was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize in 2010.

2. My story "Exhibition" will appear in Best European Fiction 2011, published by Dalkey Archive Press and edited by Aleksandar Hemon. I've known this for a while but now that my words of wisdom are officially up on their website, I can also officially announce it to the world!
World, please note - yes, please note, that my work will be in the same anthology as Nora Ikstena from Latvia, a whole list of talented authors across Europe, and -wait for it-- Hilary Mantel, author of Man Booker prize winner Wolf Hall.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to put on the highest heels that I can find and open that bottle of champagne...

Biography

Nora Nadjarian is an award-winning Cypriot poet and writer. She has represented Cyprus at literary events and festivals in Europe and elsewhere, including Frankfurt Book Fair and Dresdner Bardinale and within the framework of EU2016, in the poetry project ‘In European Poetry I want to live’ (Amsterdam).

Her work has been cited or published in the Guardian, the Irish Times and the Telegraph and has also won prizes and commendations in international competitions, including the Commonwealth Short Story Competition, the Féile Filíochta International Poetry Competition, the Binnacle International Ultra-Short Competition and the Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Prize. Her work deals with the themes of women, refugees, identity, exile, love and loss, as well as the political situation in Cyprus.

In Cyprus she is best known for her book of short stories “Ledra Street” (2006) but has had poetry and short fiction published internationally. Her work was included in A River of Stories, an anthology of tales and poems from across the Commonwealth, illustrated by Jan Pieńkowski, Best European Fiction 2011 (Dalkey Archive Press), Being Human (Bloodaxe Books, 2011) and Capitals (Bloomsbury, 2017).Her latest publication is the collection of short stories Selfie (Roman Books, 2017) and her short plays “Mermaid” and “Catalina” were recently performed at the Old Red Lion theatre in London.

Her special interest lies in the teaching of creative writing. In recent years she has facilitated several creative writing workshops– in English, Greek and German – at schools, universities and prisons in Cyprus and Germany.