NEW YORK — The Anahid Literary Prize has been awarded to Lory Bedikian for 2024 and Aaron Poochigian for 2025. The award is given to a writer of Armenian descent writing in English, in early or mid-career, in recognition of their achievement. Founded by an anonymous donor, the award has been administered by the Columbia University Armenian Center since 1989.
Past winners have included writers in poetry, fiction, playwriting and screenwriting, such as Laura Kalpakian, Leslie Ayvasian, Peter Balakian, Eric Bogosian, Diana Der Hovanessian, Micheline Marcom, Aris Janigian, Atom Egoyan, Arthur Nersesian, Patricia Sarafian Ward and Susan Barba. The award comes with a $5,000 cash prize. The prize committee includes Peter Balakian, Aris Janigian, Micheline Marcom and Patricia Sarafian Ward.
Bedikian’s collection The Book of Lamenting won the Philip Levine Prize in Poetry and her second book Jagadakeer: Apology to the Body won the 2023 Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry, published by the University of Nebraska Press. Her poems have appeared in literary journals including Gulf Coast, Tin House, The Los Angeles Review, Northwest Review and Massachusetts Review. Bedikian earned a BA from UCLA and an MFA from the University of Oregon. She teaches poetry workshops in Los Angeles and elsewhere, including the Poets House of New York and the Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center of Los Angeles.
Poochigian’s books of poems include Manhattanite, The Cosmic Purr and American Divine, which won the Richard Wilbur Award. His work has appeared publications such as Best American Poetry, The Paris Review and POETRY. His latest book, Four Walks in Central: A Poetic Guide to the Park, was published in September 2025. He holds a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of Minnesota and an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia. His translations from Greek and Latin have been published by Penguin Classics and W.W. Norton, including Stung with Love: Poems and Fragments by Sappho.
The Columbia Armenian Center will sponsor an award ceremony for Bedikian and Poochigian on March 30 at Columbia University.
