Nona Balakian
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Nona Balakian (Armenian: Նոնա Պալագեան; September 4, 1918, in Constantinople – August 12, 1991, in New York City) was a literary critic and an editor at the New York Times Sunday Book Review.[1] She served on the Pulitzer Prize committee and was a board member of the Authors Guild and the Pen Club as well as a founder of the National Book Critics Circle, whose Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing is named for her.[2][3]
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Nona Balakian | |
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Balakian in 1937 | |
| Born | September 4, 1918 Constantinople, Ottoman Empire (now Istanbul, Turkey) |
| Died | August 12, 1991 (aged 72) New York City, United States |
| Occupation | Literary Critic |
| Known for | Editor at the New York Times Sunday Book Review, founder of the National Book Critics Circle |
| Relatives | Grigoris Balakian (granduncle) Anna Balakian (sister) Peter Balakian (nephew) |
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Balakian immigrated to New York as a child. She graduated from Barnard College and received a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she studied with the literary critic Lionel Trilling, in 1943.[4] She joined the New York Times Book Review that same year and remained a staff member for 43 years, retiring in 1987.[1]
She and her sister, Anna Balakian, a literary critic and professor at New York University who died in 1997, were members of a literary circle that also included the playwright William Saroyan and the diarist Anaïs Nin.[5] In 1981 Nona Balakian won a Rockefeller grant for her work on William Saroyan.[6][7] The Balakian sisters were the grandnieces of the archbishop and Armenian genocide survivor Grigoris Balakian and the aunts of the poet and Pulitzer Prize winner Peter Balakian.[8]
Bibliography
- Nona Balakian (1948). Arveste: new writing, New York: Armenian Students' Association
- Nona Balakian (1958). The Armenian-American writer: a new accent in American fiction. New York: Armenian General Benevolent Union. ASIN B002J7S1F8
- Nona Balakian; Charles Simmons (1973). The Creative Present. Notes on contemporary American fiction. New York: Gordian Press. ISBN 8775215810, 978-8775215812
- Nona Balakian (1978). Critical Encounters: Literary views and reviews, 1953-1977, Bobbs-Merrill, ISBN 0672523418, 978-0672523410
- Nona Balakian (1991). Critical Encounters: Literary Views and Reviews. New York: Ashod Press. ISBN 0935102280, 978-0935102284
- Nona Balakian (1998). The World of William Saroyan. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press. ISBN 083875368X, 9780838753682