Third-year Ph.D. student Chen Gong has won two American Association of Teachers of Turkic Languages (AATT) awards. He was the winner of the inaugural Norman Itzkowitz Turkish Short Story Award in the Advanced Level category for his story, “Kanat ve Duvar.” The Award “is an annual prize granted to the two best short stories written in Turkish by Turkish language students in North America, one at the advanced level and the other at the beginner/intermediate level. The award memorializes the contributions of Norman Hoca, whom we lost in January 2019.” Princeton swept the 2021 honors as Laurens P. Boomsma from the Comparative Literature Department won in the Beginner/Intermediate category for his story “İtalya’da Yaşıyordum O Zaman.” Both winners are students of NES Lecturer Nilüfer Hatemi. The award, which carries a $250 prize, is open to both graduate and undergraduate students. Both short stories may be read in the winter 2022 AATT Newsletter.

Chen Gong also won the 2021 AATT Walter G. Andrews Ottoman Turkish Translation award in the Level 1 category (“a student who has taken one or two semesters of Ottoman Turkish in 2020–2021 or participated in an Ottoman Turkish summer program and who has submitted the most successful portfolio.”). Chen “translated three pieces on the 1911 Revolution in China published in the Ottoman Turkish newspaper Tanin. Gong’s starting point for choosing these pieces was to better understand the interest of Ottoman print media in the Chinese Revolution during the Young Turk era. The jury noted that Gong ‘deserves praise for his conscientious and largely successful efforts to read and translate the text.’” His translation may be read by clicking on the embedded link. This award also carries a $250 prize.