The National Library of Armenia has launched a new initiative — meetings with publishers under the title “Recommended by Publishers: Book News.” Today, the initiative officially began with a meeting featuring David Samvelyan, Editor-in-Chief of Edit Print. The discussion with David Samvelyan was attended by staff members from the National Library as well as several municipal libraries of Yerevan. An engaging conversation developed around readers’ demands and interests, issues of library acquisitions, publishing processes, and other related topics.

As an author, David Samvelyan also presented two of his own publications: “Beware, the Doors Do Not Close” and “The Bells of a Forgotten Land.” The novel The Bells of a Forgotten Land depicts interethnic relations in Nakhichevan during the 20th century, as well as the hardships, changes, and tensions of pre-war and post-war life. (The book is available at the National Library of Armenia and accessible to readers.)

The editor also spoke about a number of newly published children’s and young adult books in 2024. Notably, for the first time in Armenian, Edgar Rice Burroughs’s “Tarzan of the Apes” has been translated and published in the Adventure Library series, translated by Haykanush Sharuryan. Among new translations from world literature, he highlighted Bram Stoker’s “Under the Sunset,” a collection of stories exploring good and evil, courage and fear, honesty and deceit, childhood maturity and innocence in both everyday and absolute forms.

In 2024, Erich Maria Remarque’s “The Dream Room” was published in Armenian, translated by Narine Tadevosyan. The novel portrays the touching image of a young artist, reflecting Remarque’s own path of development as a writer. Samvelyan also introduced Thomas Wolfe’s “The Far and the Near,” a collection containing twenty-eight stories selected from the most complete English-language edition, The Complete Stories, compiled by Francis E. Skipp. He also spoke about new translations published by Edit Print, including Émile Zola’s “The Dram Shop,” Hector Malot’s “Suzanne: Miss Clifton,” and a series of translations of novels by Georges Simenon.

The meeting with the publisher provided answers to many pressing questions and offered insight into the specific features and challenges of publishing activity. Follow the National Library of Armenia’s Facebook page for updates on upcoming meetings.