Hagop Garabents (1925-1994)

Hagop Garabents (1925-1994)

Hagop Garabents-Garabedian was born in 1925, in Tabriz. After receiving a primary education in his birthplace, he received his intermediate education at the French college Saint Louis in Tehran. In 1944, in Tehran, together with some friends who shared the same vision, he became part of the core founders of the Armenian Adolescents’ Cultural Union, which in the fall of 1950 was renamed the Ararat Armenian Cultural Union, and later was enlarged and once again renamed the Ararat Armenian Cultural Association. Today, after decades, the Association is considered to be the backbone of the sports, cultural, and social life of the Armenian community in Iran. Garabents attended Kansas University in Missouri, in the United States. After graduating from there, he attended Columbia University in New York. He specialized in journalism, having chosen psychology as his second major. In 1954-1979 he managed the Armenian section of Voice of America. Garabents contributed to several diasporan dailies and publications (“Hayrenik,” “Pakin,” “Alik,” “Asbarez,” and the literary supplement of “Horizon,” to name some.) Garabents’s first steps in literature were taken through poems, short articles, and chronicles, which have been published in the periodicals “Arousiag,” “Louis,” and “Eros,” as well as in “Alik” Daily. In 1970, the first volume of his short stories, “Andzanot hokiner,” was published in the USA. Afterwards, the contemporary novel “Gartakeni tousdre” was published in 1972, “Nor ashkharhi hin sermnatsannere” (short stories) in 1975, “Michnarar” (short stories) in 1981, “Atami kirke” (contemporary novel) in 1983, “Amerigian Shourchbar” in 1986, “Angadar” in 1987, “Yergou ashkharh, kragarn portsaroutiounner” in 1992, and “Mi mart, mi yergir, yev ail badmouadzkner” in 1994. In 1994 he died.