The final installment of the International Armenian Literary Alliance's Literary Lights 2025 reading series features Tenny Arlen's posthumous poetry collection To Say with Passion: Why Am I Here?

Saturday, December 6, 2025
9:00 AM - 11:00 AM (Pacific Time)

Jesse Arlen, co-translator of the book, will be joined by Susan Barba, Hagop Gulludjian and Arthur Ipek. The virtual event, cosponsored by NAASR, the Zohrab Center,  UCLA's Narekatsi Chair of Armenian Studies, Promise Armenian Institute, Richard Hovannisian Endowed Chair in Modern Armenian History and University of Michigan's Center for Armenian Studies, will take place on December 6, 2025, at 9:00 AM Pacific | 12:00 PM Eastern | 9:00 PM Armenia time.

To Say with Passion: Why Am I Here? is a bilingual (Armenian and English) edition of Tenny Arlen’s poetry, an extraordinary body of work written in a language she began learning only a few years before her passing in 2015. The book brings together the full contents of the 2021 Armenian publication, ԿԻՐՔՈՎ ԸՍԵԼՈՒ՝ ԻՆՉՈ՞Ւ ՀՈՍ ԵՄ, presenting the original poems alongside English translations by Tenny and her brother Dr. Jesse Arlen.