Tekeyan has been publishing books for almost four decades, starting in 1978 in Boston with a celebration of the poet Vahan Tekeyan’s birthday. It publishes both literary and historical works. The list of publications includes 39 volumes — 21 published on the West Coast and 18 on the East. It has presented the world with the works of numerous noted contemporary diasporan Armenian writers, as well as famous literary authors toward the end of the arc of long careers. The names published include Alek Klijian, Jacques S. Hagopian, Kurken Mahari, Zareh Melkonian, Antranig Dzarugian, Antranig L. Poladian, Dr. Khachig Boghosian, Vahram Geokjian, Hagop Asadourian, and Garig Basmadjian.
Vahakn, a talented Los Angeleno, has written a 350-page book which includes 25 of the author’s published and unpublished works. This work becomes the fortieth in the Tekeyan publication series. He is a productive writer who in the last fifty years has remained a respected fixture in the Armenian diasporan literary world. He has published nine volumes of stories, plays, novels and literary essays. His novel, Arshile Gorky, a fictionalized biography of the famous artist, won the Tekeyan Cultural Association Literary Prize in Armenia.
Garabedian lives in Reno, Nev. The nature of his work may be linked to a diasporan Armenian school of writing which began with Vahan Tekeyan and continued with Vahram Mavian, Smpad Derunian, Zareh Melkonian and Nerses Tamamian. This may be called the Melkonian School because it reflects the warm atmosphere, and patriotic and Armenological approach of the Melkonian Educational Institute of Nicosia, Cyprus, with which many of these writers were connected. His new volume is 176 pages long, and is the 41st in the Tekeyan publication series.
The two new volumes have been printed by Michael Nahabet, president of Yearbook, Inc. His firm uses the latest technology and specializes in the publication of yearbooks for secondary schools.
The Publications Committee of the Tekeyan Cultural Association has decided to continue the publication of the works of diasporan Armenian writers as part of an effort to maintain a high level of quality in published Armenian literary writing.
