ForeWord Reviews journal announced the winners of the 2010 Book of the Year Awards.

At a ceremony during the American Library Association Conference in New Orleans, the 215 Book of the Year Award winners in 60 categories were honored. These books, representing the best independently published books from 2010 were selected by a panel of librarian and bookseller judges.

Armenian-born writer Armen Melikian’s Journey to Virginland: Epistle I became one of the 4 winners in Fiction - Literary category.

According to ForeWord Reviews, “Melikian serves up a searing commentary on the earth and its inhabitants through the canine eyes of "Dog," a self-proclaimed canine, and an ethnic Armenian. Dog offers a controversial, Kafkaesque, and somehow matter-of-fact narrative of life as he knows it within the various cultures that he lives during his life. Those who like mind-bending literature and farce, coupled with social commentary and a frankness about the role of sexuality in human relationships, will find this an engrossing, brilliantly crafted read.

It's immediately evident that Dog's world is slightly askew in relation to the reader's: Dog's world calls the countries we know as Italy, Russia and Afghanistan Alpacinoland, Natashaland, and Binladenland. The US is referred to as Satanland, Pornistan, or Gehenna. Most notably, Dog refers to the region known today as Turkey as Pashaland, Caliphland, and Paradise, which reside within a larger entity, Virginland. The region with which Dog concerns himself most is this very area of Paradise–which the reader will recognize as the Fertile Crescent.

It seems that throughout his travels Dog has been unable to find a place where he (or anyone else) feels he belongs. And perhaps it's not surprising: After all, he is not human. He is part of a dispossessed, maligned people. He identifies the vicissitudes of society with candor unwelcome to those around him. He questions god, and leadership, and religion.”