Vardges Petrosyan

Who was Vardges Petrosyan?

Vardges Petrosyan was an Armenian writer of fiction and drama. Vardges Petrosyan, a prominent novelist, playwright and essayist was born in 1932 in the town of Ashtarak, where he spent his childhood years, finished school and began writing his first verses.

In 1954, he graduated from the Yerevan University and started writing for several youth newspapers. As a newspaper correspondent he travelled all over his native Armenia and throughout the entire Soviet Union—from 'Yakutia in Eastern Siberia to Karelia in the northwest of the country.

His first collection of poems, "The Ballad of Mens", came out in 1958, to be followed by collections of essays, feature stories and tales.

Vardges Petrosyan is best known for his novels "The Last Teacher", "Letters from the Small Stations of Childhood", "The Ani Drugstore", "The Armenian Sketches" and also for his play "The Heavy Weight of Hippocrates' Hat". Petrosyan is a winner of the Armenian Republic's State Prize and Komsomol Prize.

In 1966, he became the editor-in-chief of an Armenian youth monthly "Garun" where he worked till 1975 when he was elected the First Secretary of the Board of Writers' Union of Armenia.