The jury for the Pierre-Benoît 2024 prize crowned, Monday June 24, Corinne Zarzavatdjian for his first novel, Rose of Diarbekir, published in September 2023 by Les Presses de la Cité. The winner received her distinction at the Hôtel Particular des Gueules Cassées, from the hands of Jean Orizetpresident of the Association of Combatant Writers and in the presence of the Ambassador of Armenia to France.
With Rose of DiarbékirCorinne Zarzavatdjian delivers a first novel that highlights a short, invisible part of the history of the Armenian people and relates the insubordination of exceptional women. In 1893, in Diarbekir, an Armenian province of the Ottoman Empire, the Hagopian family lives torn between tradition and modernity. While the older brothers leave to study in Europe, the youngest, Rose, is passionate about theater and French culture. Encouraged by her relatives, the young girl joins Constantinople, where she manages to get noticed by Sarah Bernhardt’s troupe, passing through the thousand-year-old city. The realization of a dream, interrupted by the persecutions of the “red sultan”, Abdülhamid II.
Author and actress of Armenian origin, Corinne Zarzavatdjian bears witness to the little-known culture and history of the country of her ancestors. She also co-signed with her brother the books Armenian Cuisineprefaced by André Manoukian (Solar, 2017), et Armenia and Armenians from A to Z prefaced by Boris Cyrulnik (Gründ, 2020).
