CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The Trinity Men’s Union of Holy Trinity Armenian Church will host Stephen Kurkjian, one of the most acclaimed investigative reporters in the country, as guest speaker at its dinner and meeting on Monday, May 9, in the Charles and Nevart Talanian Cultural Hall of Holy Trinity Armenian Church, 145 Brattle St.
Kurkjian will be talking about the theft of 13 pieces of artwork from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; his reporting of the theft is regarded as the most complete account of the still unsolved crime. Master Thieves, his book on the subject, was published by Public Affairs last year and received critical praise from The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post. The book has been optioned to TriStar Studios and is currently being adapted into a screenplay.
A Boston native, Kurkjian spent nearly 40 years as an editor and reporter for the Boston Globe before retiring in 2007. During his career, he shared in three Pulitzer prizes and won more than 20 regional and national reporting awards. Educated in the Boston public schools, Stephen graduated from Boston Latin School in 1962. He majored in English Literature at Boston University and earned his law degree from Suffolk University Law School in 1970. Stephen was a founding member of The Boston Globe’s Investigative Spotlight Team, and its editor from 1979 to 1986. In 1986, he was named chief of the Globe’s Washington Bureau and for six years oversaw the work of the paper’s 10 reporters there. In addition, while at the bureau, he covered the Supreme Court, the Justice Department, and the Bush White House during the first war in Iraq. Returning to Boston in the early 1990s, he completed numerous investigative projects from The Globe newsroom including the clergy abuse scandal inside the Boston Archdiocese, the devastating fire at a Rhode Island nightclub that took the lives of 100 people, and the recovery of a Cezanne still life that was stolen from a Berkshires home in 1978 and later auctioned for $29 million.
Kurkjian has also written extensively about the Armenian Genocide, which his late father survived as a 3-year-old in 1915.
The evening will begin with the social hour at 6:15 p.m., followed by dinner at 7 p.m. Donation for the losh kebab and kheyma dinner is $15 per person. RSVP is requested by May 9, by emailing tmuhtaac@gmail.com, or calling the Holy Trinity Church office.
