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= Leon Surmelian = Leon Zaven Surmelian (Armenian: Լեւոն Զաւէն Սիւրմէլեան; born November 24, 1905 ) was an Armenian-American author. Surmelian moved to America in 1922, served as the editor of the Armenian Messenger in 1931, an Armenian newspaper circulated in Los Angeles, and authored three major works throughout his life time. A survivor of the Armenian Genocide, Surmelian's first English book, an autobiography, I Ask You, Ladies and Gentlemen extensively explored the events of the Genocide through the eyes of a 10-year-old Surmelian. He is also well known for translating the Armenian epic Daredevils of Sassoun ("Sasna Dzrer") into English.

Early Life
Leon Surmelian was born on Novermber 24, 1905, in Trabzon, Trebizond Vilayet, Ottoman Empire to pharmacist Garabed Surmelian and Zvart Diradurian. Surmelian, the third of four children, had two sisters and a brother. Surmelian has noted that his father was strongly for Armenian-Turkish friendship, and the only Armenian in Trabzon critical of Russia. His uncle, also named Leon, was a member of the Dashnak Armenian Revolutionary Federation while he was growing up.

In 1915, during the Armenian Genocide, Surmelian lost both of his parents, but was adopted, along with his three siblings, by a Greek doctor who was a family-friend at the time. In 1916, eleven-year-old Surmelian boarded a Russian ship to Batumi, then Krasnodar. In 1918, after an armistice during the First World War, Surmelian arrived in Contantinople with a group of friends and later attended the Armash Farming School in Armash. After a brief year in Armenia, he returned to Constantinople and lived in an orphanage whilst he attended religious school. At the age of 16, he served as the assistant secretary to the Commissariat of the Interior.

In 1922, the Armenian Union of Agriculture helped Surmelian move to America, where he earned his Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Administration degree from Kansas State University.

Career
Surmelian originally wanted to study agriculture in America to go back and reconstruct Armenia. Although he thought poetry wasn't the right way to carry out the task of helping one's country, he later described himself as an "engineer of the soul, just as in demand as a regular engineer in times of crisis."

His writing can be traced back to 1920, when he met Vahan Tekeyan, an Armenian poet, at the amphitheater of the Armenian Central School in Istanbul. Tekeyan was the editor of The People's Voice, a publication in Istanbul, and offered to edit and publish Surmelian's poems. In 1924, he collected his various poems and published his first and only Armenian work, Joyous Light (Lus Zvart), in Paris, France.

From 1931 to 1932, Surmelian served as the editor of the first Armenian-American weekly paper in English, the Armenian Messenger. In 1937, Surmelian naturalized as an American citizen, and then went to work at the Los Angeles County Department of Probation from 1943 to 1944. He also briefly wrote as a screen writer for Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios from 1944 to 1945.

In 1945, Surmelian published I Ask You, Ladies and Gentlemen, an autobiographical description of his life during the Armenian Genocide in English, and would later be translated into Italian, Swedish, Czech, and Turkish.

In 1950, he published a collection of short stories titled 98.6°, which was followed by a collection of Armenian folktales retold through Surmelian's voice titled Apples of Immortality: Folktales of Armenia in 1958. Surmelian then went to translate the Armenian national epic Sasna Dzrer into English and published the story as Daredevils of Sassoun in 1964. Both Apples of Immortality and Daredevils of Sassoun were are considered to be important pieces of the Armenian people's literary works and are included in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

Whilst working on Apples of Immortality and Daredevils of Sassoun, Surmelian was simultaneously lecturing at the University of Southern California and continued to do so until 1969. In 1969, he published his last work Techniques of Fiction Writing: Measure and Madness, an educational book on modern fiction. Surmelian died in 1995.

Works
Joyous Light, Surmelian's first and only work in Armenian published in 1924, was well received globally. At just 19, Surmelian won praise from the Armenian community and critics in Venice, Italy, Cairo, Egypt, and Paris, France.

Surmelian's autobiographical novel on the Armenian Genocide and first work in English, I Ask You, Ladies and Gentlemen, was also praised internationally and was eventually translated into multiple languages after its initial publication in 1945.

Apples of Immortality, published by the University of California Press in 1968, presented 40 Armenian folktales that, according to Surmelian, "only needed a little trimming and stitching" to make the book comprehensible to the non-Armenian. The 319 page book received mixed reviews and was praised for its artistic insight into the ways and beliefs of the Armenian people. Some critics, however, found the depiction of the Armenian womanhood to be inaccurate, citing multiple stories with two brides contrary to the traditional view that Armenians are monogamous. The folktales, illustrated by Stewart Irwin, were compared to similar English stories, once critic noting that the book had an Armenian equivalent for every tale including an Armenian Cinderella variant.

Daredevils of Sassoun, Surmelian's 280 page recreation of the Armenian epic based on village oral traditions, was published in 1964 and illustrated by Paul Sagsoorian. The novel, described as Homeric, begins with a 25 page introduction and follows with four sagas titled Sanasar and Balthasar, Great Meherr, Splendid David, and Meherr Junior that largely explore the conflicts of Christian warriors with Islam. The book received critical acclaim for its ability to retain the poetic qualities, metaphors, images, and rhetoric of the reciters without depending on lyrical song to retain the readers interest. Critics comment that the book is characterized by uneven style, repetitions, great narrative leaps, and detailed conversations existing side by side with summary descriptions of the actions.

Surmelian's last book, published in 1969, Techniques of Fiction Writing: Measure and Madness, tackles modern fiction writing using examples from Flaubert, Joyce, Dostoevsky, and Hemingway. The book is widely available online, and still used in classrooms today.

Influences
After his first work, Joyous Light, Surmelian abandoned writing in Armenian and only wrote in English. At the same time, Surmelian changed his first name from 'Levon' to 'Leon', dropping the 'v' associated with the Armenian name. Noubar Aghishian, another Armenian-American author based in California, defended Surmelian's choice to not write in his mother tongue, asking his critics "who even reads Armenian books today?"

Vahan Tekeyan, who helped Surmelian edit his Joyous Light poems, often exchanged letters with Surmelian. The two were close, and Surmelian, who later published the letters, explains that Tekeyan was an early mentor and left a great impression on his later writings.

Surmelian himself says that Austrian-American author Franz Werfel and fellow Armenian-American writer William Saroyan inspired him to tell the Armenian story in a different language. Saroyan would later go on to write the introduction to Surmelian's I Ask You, Ladies and Gentlemen, and Surmelian would eventually go on to be known as the most widely read Armenian-American author after Saroyan.

= Article Topic =

Leon Surmelian
Potential Lead:

Leon Zaven Surmelian, born XXX to YYY, was an Armenian-American author. His best know works include a translation of the Armenian epic, Daredevils of Sassoun into English in 1964, I Ask you Ladies and Gentlemen, and 98.6o.

An Armenian American, Surmelian wrote extensively about his internal conflicts evolving from the Armenian immigrant life. Many of his stories, particularly ..., explore this conflict.

He has been described as ... in the media and his stories seem to be inspired by ...

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The page is quite literally plagiarized from https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Leon%20Surmelian. (or Vice-Versa)

Regardless, the page is missing a lot of information and is visually unappealing.

The page also has no talk page, which isn't helpful, but it also means the page is ripe for the taking!

There is sadly very little on the internet that I can cite for his page, and so I would use different language versions of his wiki-page and his own books as sources.

Expected Outline of Actions

 * Revamp Biography Box to look just as good as President Obama's
 * More images to make the page more visually appealing
 * Divide page into multiple sections
 * Early Life
 * Similar to what is already presented; preferably cited more
 * Career
 * Contact with other Armenians?
 * His work in the Armenian Weekly?
 * Works
 * Description of Works + short analysis or excerpts of meaningful lines
 * Armenian Identity
 * Short analysis of his conflict with his Armenian identity (dropping the V from Levon; I ask you Ladies and Gentleman)

Yenovk Der Hagopian

 * Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you? The content is relevant, but the article features multiple grammatical errors.
 * Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position? I found the article to be quite neutral. The authors have maintained a strong focus on Gorky's relationship with Der Hagopian which may be re-evaluated.
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented? Refer to above.
 * Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article? The links work – and they support the claims. Some citations are from works before the age of the internet, so those could be verified.
 * Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted? Bias towards Gorky perhaps? Reads like the page is partly his. All claims seem to be supported with citations.
 * Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added? A lot of what we learnt in class could be mentioned/interwoven into his page. Could elaborate on his works, his acclaim, etc. outside of Gorky's view. Would also add an image.
 * Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic? No talk.
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects? The WikiPedia Biography project with no rating as of now.
 * How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class? With far less detail; could definitely be edited to truly showcase the life and works of such a great man.