Role: Author

Leonardo Alishan (1951-2005) Leonardo Alishan was born of Armenian parents in Tehran, Iran. He came to the U.S. for graduate studies in 1973 and from 78-97 he taught Persian literature and comparitive literature at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. His poems and stories have been published in a variety of national and international journals and have been the recepient of a number of literary awards. Alishan’s first collection, Dancing Barefoot on Broken Glass, appeared in New York in 1991. His second, Through a Dewdrop was published in Glendale, California in 2002. “Tired Thoughts” was awarded the People Before Profits Poetry Prize for 2003.

Leonidas Chrysanthopoulos is a career diplomat who in 1993 became the first Greek ambassador to newly independent Armenia, where he also represented the Presidency of the European Union. He has served in Toronto, in Beijing, and in his country’s missions to the European Union in Brussels and the United Nations in New York. Like his father and grandfather before him, he was consul-general of Greece in Istanbul. He has served as ambassador of his country to Poland and is currently ambassador of Greece to Canada.

Lerna Ekmekcioglu is Associate Professor of History and Women’s Studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.