Armenian-language launch of “Last Night on Earth” held in Yerevan

The Armenian-language presentation of the quadrilingual graphic narrative Last Night on Earth took place at the TUMO Center for Creative Technologies in Yerevan. Developed within the framework of the EU Creative Europe program, the project brings together literature, visual narration and research-based storytelling to articulate a reality for which the very act of narration constitutes a boundary gesture. The collection places war narratives from Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine in dialogue. The Armenian contribution is authored by prose writer Ani Asatryan, edited by Mikheil Tsikhelashvili, illustrated by Astghik Harutyunyan and published by E.J. Publishing House. The first presentation of the English-language edition took place during Yerevan BookFest 2025, followed by the project’s inclusion and presentation in the official exhibition selection of the 2025 Frankfurt Book Fair. Last Night on Earth approaches the material of war through a sustained methodology of fragmentation, rupture and refusal of retelling. The work raises a central question: how can one recall or narrate a reality for which there already exists a verified archive, an established international legal framework and extensive bodies of testimony? The Armenian narrative deliberately avoids naming states, nationalities or specific events, allowing the political reality to become legible through form, structure and embodied archival presence itself. On Nov. 26, the Armenian-language edition of the work was presented to local readers at the TUMO Center for Creative Technologies. The project had already been made accessible to international audiences beginning in September 2025 through the publication of its English version in the Netherlands-based periodical Drawing the Times. The Yerevan presentation maintained a restrained and quiet format, without staged readings, formal discussions or marketing framing. Emphasis rested on the work itself — as an object of contemporary local thought and aesthetic inquiry — one that speaks through its structure while refusing to become a dramatized narrative tailored for consumption. The Armenian narrative is currently being studied at several universities in Switzerland, England and Cyprus, within the broader context of the author’s body of work. The work does not seek to produce yet another testimony or to "raise awareness.” Instead, it exposes the threshold beyond which narration becomes insufficient — when historiography repeatedly confronts its own repetition and exhausted regimes of interpretation. About the author Ani Asatryan’s work has appeared in international publications including Words Without Borders and Absinthe: World Literature in Translation (Michigan Publishing), and is taught in the curricula of the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Basel; and the American University of Armenia. Her quadrilingual graphic novel Last Night on Earth, developed within the framework of the EU Creative Europe program, has been included in the official exhibition selection of the 2025 Frankfurt Book Fair. Asatryan has delivered invited lectures and talks at the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Basel; universities in Cyprus; and the University of Sussex. Her works Words and Makukachu are held in the collections of the New York Public Library, as well as the libraries of Columbia University and the University of Michigan. She holds a Master’s degree from the University of Sussex and is the recipient of the grand prize of the "Ardzak 2013” literary competition. Forthcoming are the author’s first novel, Annman, as well as a second novel, a first poetry collection and a second collection of short stories.

Armenian-language launch of “Last Night on Earth” held in Yerevan

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