Armen Melikian

Armen Melikian (b. 1963) holds a Master's in International Relations from American University, Washington, D.C. He has also studied mathematics at Harvard and elsewhere, and was admitted by the Mathematical Institute of Oxford University to pursue graduate studies in Analytic Geometry, Mathematical Physics, and Topology. However, he eventually abandoned both politics and mathematics in favor of literature and dedicated his life to writing. Melikian lives in Los Angeles.

Melikian is one of those rare thinkers whose intensity of passion matches their sharp wit and intellect. His poignant observations take to task the core tenets of metaideologies and jockeying civilizations, helping to discard layer after layer of entrenched misinformation and dogma.

Melikian brings a fresh, prodigiously layered voice to contemporary literature, not only expanding the boundaries of the novelistic endeavor as an artistic medium per se, but infusing it with extraordinary urgency and relevance in terms of sociopolitical, cultural, religious, and philosophical thought as well as mythological exegesis.

To date, awards and honors earned by Melikian's novel, Journey to Virginland, include the Written Art Award in General Fiction, the Reviewers' Choice Award in Humor, and the Pinnacle Book Achievement Award for Best Fiction. The novel was also selected by the Next Generation Indie Book Awards as one of the year's top five books in Humor/Comedy, and received the only Honorable Mention in the Literary Fiction category at ForeWord Reviews' Book of the Year Awards. Melikian has also received two International Book Finalist Awards in General Fiction and Visionary Fiction.

Given its prescient vision of the shape of things to come, Melikian's novel has been compared by critics to some of the masterpieces of contemporary literature, among them the politically explosive works of George Orwell. It has also been compared to Gurdjieff's Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, and even to apocalyptic works such as the book of Revelation.