An American-Argentine-Armenian writer is the only living poet whose work has been illustrated by the legendary PABLO PICASSO, and one of the few poets in history who writes in three languages: English, Spanish and Armenian.
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Alicia Ghiragossian, an American-Argentine-Armenian writer is the only living poet whose work has been illustrated by the legendary PABLO PICASSO, and one of the few poets in history who writes in three languages: English, Spanish and Armenian.
She was born in Argentina from Armenian survivors of genocide. She started writing poetry, in Spanish, at age 14, and her first poem was published a couple of years later in a local magazine.
Although she graduated from the University of Buenos Aires, Law School, she continued to pursue art and literature. For several years she has been in the permanent cast of the university theater. That allowed her to develop her stage talents, which later on helped her professionally read her own poems.
Dr. Ghiragossian is the author of 44 volumes of poetry. After several books were published in Spanish, an anthology of poems was translated into Armenian and published in that country, in 1967. 10,000 copies were sold out in one day. Her creations brought such a new voice within Armenian literature that newspapers printing her poems were sold at twenty times their value (one ruble instead of five kopek.) For the first time in Armenian, and perhaps even in world history, a black market of poetry was created. Her work inspired generations of young poets; her poems were sung around the country; artists painted her portrait and poets dedicated poems to her. School classes were named after her, she became a best-selling author and her bronze bust was displayed at the National Museum of Art and Literature. She became one of the most beloved poets of the Armenian people and enjoys frequent invitations to that country as official guest of the government.
She has taught courses in Modern Poetry at UCLA; given lectures and seminars at universities in various countries; participated in world congresses; served as a juror in international contests of literature and the founder of the “meta-dimensional” theory of poetry, in which she exposed the essential elements of metaphors.
In Brazil, at the University of San Pablo, her work was the subject of a doctoral thesis in Literature.
In Argentina, her dialogued story-poems “Pedro Amor,” a National Authors’ Prize winner, was staged in Buenos Aires with music especially composed by Argentine icon ASTOR PIAZZOLLA.
In Armenia, her poetry is admired at all levels, and university students consider her work to be among the giants of poetry, next to Pablo Neruda and Kahlil Gibran.
Her work has earned international prizes and has been published in English, Spanish, Armenian, Italian, Persian, Greek, and French. It has also been translated into Portuguese, Russian, and Swedish.
Her poetry has earned a considerable amount of recognition from well-known writers and literary critics. Pulitzer Prize laureate WILLIAM SAROYAN wrote: “Beautiful poetry. Great admiration for Alicia.” Argentine Nobel Prize Nominee JORGE LUIS BORGES said: “One can sense she is writing the truth.” Uruguayan poet JUANA DE IBARBOUROU manifested her “admiration” toward Alicia’s poetry and French poet JACQUES PREVERT expressed: “A comet, a sun, the good times of poetry.”
Although her first books were written in Spanish, over the years, she gradually begun writing in Armenian and English, a rarity in world literature, and PEACE Quantum is her first poetry volume published in all three languages: English, Spanish and Armenian.
Regarding this book, Nobel Peace Laureate and former President of Costa Rica, Dr. OSCAR ARIAS SANCHEZ wrote: “…Soaring and timeless poetry,” and Nobel Peace Laureate, the 14th DALAI LAMA expressed: “Books like these will contribute towards the spread of peace in the world.”
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