InternationalAbril Bookstore celebrates 30 years with “Abrink” weekend event
Published: Friday November 14, 2008
Outside of the old Abril Bookstore with Yervant Kochunian and Harout Yeretzian.
On November 22 and 23 Abril Bookstore in Glendale will be celebrating it's 30th Anniversary with a free event for the public: "Abrink: A Festival of Armenian Literature and Culture" at the Glendale Central Library.
Father-and-son team Harout and Arno Yeretsian have planned a weekend full of events honoring the bookstore's birthday. The two-day schedule promises an array of authors, artists, performers and scholars from the Armenian community presenting in both Armenian and English. Those attending will have the opportunity to experience everything from Armenian dance lessons and a sing-along to movie screenings and art workshops. Among the many featured are Vahe Berberian, Vatche Mankerian, Gor Mkhitarian, Aram Saroyan, and Lory Tatoulian.
The following is an online interview with Arno Yerestian about the event and the history of Abril Bookstore:
Lory Bedikian: Arno, let's first talk about the event that Abril is planning this month. Did you and your father come up with the idea together, and if so, what was the inspiration for it, besides the 30th anniversary of Abril?
Arno Yeretsian: Well, my father and I had both decided that we needed to do something special for our 30th anniversary. We agreed that we didn't want to do some fancy banquet where we would spend tons of money on food and other luxurious expenses. We thought that hosting a literary event would best suit the occasion. For years, people had awaited from us a quality festival, something like an Abril-fest. It was around July of this year when I came up with the idea of hosting a weekend-long event devoted to Armenian literature and culture. It would be a festival of different aspects of our culture where we would invite talented and professional members of our community, who are also dear friends of ours, to share with us their knowledge. A few years ago, I had done something similar to this as monthly events called "Culture Nights" at Abril, where we would invite different people such as poets, artists, musicians, and performers to share their art, expertise, knowledge, and talents with the community. And so I thought that we could do this on a larger scale, back to back on one weekend to celebrate our 30th anniversary with taste. I started envisioning some of the guests and what they could do. I didn't tell anybody about my idea. I usually try not to share my thoughts until I start the process otherwise my ideas never get realized. I put all my thoughts onto paper like an informal proposal and, one night, after having dinner with my parents, I proposed it to them. I have to admit, they were a little dazzled. It sounded pretty grand. I originally also had food segments and children's concerts as part of the line-up. I think they were overwhelmed with all the ideas I threw at them. Anyhow, after letting it soak in a little, they both started presenting ideas also. And so the process began. After the idea became more solid, we exposed it to the public and shared it with the artists we had in mind. After getting the artists' approvals and, with slight modifications to the original proposal, here we are.
LB: I noticed on the Schedule of Events that some of the segments will be bilingual. Will each artist or performer translate their own presentations, or will there be a translator present for those who don't speak both languages? Along those lines, will this event be advertised to the non-Armenian community as well?
AY: While most of the segments will be bilingual, some will be held solely in English and one will be held in Armenian. The first day leans more towards English and the second day to Armenian. The languages for each segment are noted on the event poster and website. For those that are bilingual, the guest artists will express themselves both in English and in Armenian. According to their comfort level, artists might lean toward one language more than the other. Either way, they will try to convey their information in both languages. There will not be any translators present. We are trying our best to have our event and the literature for our event, such as the poster, website, and program be presented both in Armenian and in English. The reasons for this are twofold:
First, the language of preference differs for the older and younger generations of Armenians. My dad started this bookstore with my uncle Noubar in 1978 in the middle of Hollywood. The Armenian community back then was very young and growing at an incredible rate. Different waves of Armenians were coming in from Lebanon, Soviet Armenia, and Iran. The newly arrived people were hungry for reading material in Armenian. Most of them had left all their books in the old country. They weren't as comfortable speaking, reading, and communicating in English like our generation is. Abril Bookstore supplied their demands with the Armenian books they were looking for. And let's not forget, Abril originally began in 1977, before the bookstore, as the first magazine in Los Angeles published in Armenian. This was also in response to that thirst for Armenian literature, especially as journalism covering that era's community.
Over the years, after three decades and different generations, the community began to change. As it occurs with other minorities, the generations that were born here and grew up with TV and heard English as much, if not more, as Armenian, began to feel more comfortable expressing themselves in English. Once they started thinking in English, their language of preference naturally became English.
Having said all this, having our event be held bilingually is a way to appease the older, Armenian-speaking Armenians as well as the younger, English-speaking Armenians.
Secondly, we live in a very diverse community along with other cultures and ethnicities. There are lots of non-Armenian people in our community with whom we live, work, go to school, and, in many cases, create families. I'm sure that they've learned quite a bit about Armenians simply by their interactions. Things have come a long way since those earlier days of living here, where people didn't have a slight clue about who Armenians were. I remember the days when I would tell somebody that I'm Armenian and they wouldn't even know that such a country existed.
