Vardges Hamazaspi Petrosyan was born in 1932 in the town of
Ashtarak, where he spent his childhood, went to school and began writing his first verses. In 1954, he graduated from the
journalism department of
Yerevan State University and started writing for several youth newspapers. As a newspaper correspondent, he travelled throughout his native Armenia and the entire
Soviet Union, from
Yakutia in Eastern Siberia to
Karelia in the northwest of the country. His first collection of poems,
The Ballad about Man (), was published in 1958. His subsequent works are in
prose. He is best known for his novellas
The Last Teacher (, 1980),
Years Lived and Unlived (, 1970), the series of short stories
Letters from the Stations of Childhood (),
Drugstore Ani (, 1973), the essay series "Armenian Sketches" (""), and the play
Heavy is the Hat of Hippocrates (, 1975). Several of his works were adapted into plays. His novel
The Solitary Walnut Tree (, 1981) was adapted into a film by director
Frunze Dovlatyan in 1986. This novel was also published in English translation under the title
The Solitary Hazel Tree in the magazine
Soviet Literature (1983, no. 5/422). Most of Petrosyan's works, such as
The Half-Open Windows of the City (, 1964) and
Drugstore Ani, have youth and its psychological features as their subject. His novel
The Solitary Hazel Tree depicts the modern life and issues of Armenia's mountainous villages. The essay series "Armenian Sketches" are dedicated to the life and history of
Soviet Armenia and the
Armenian diaspora and the importance of the connection between the two. His articles, travelogues and literary reviews were published in the collection
An Equation with Multiple Unknowns () in 1977. He published a two-volume collection of his selected works () in 1983. From 1966 to 1975, he was the editor-in-chief of the Armenian monthly literary journal (
Spring). In 1975, he was elected first secretary of the board of the
Writers' Union of Armenia. He served as the president of the Writers' Union from 1981 to 1988. Petrosyan received the Armenia
Komsomol Prize in 1969 and the
State Prize of the Armenian SSR in 1979. He was also honored with the
Order of the Badge of Honour and the
Order of the October Revolution. He joined the
Communist Party in 1952 and became a member of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of Armenia in 1976. Petrosyan served multiple terms as a deputy in the
Supreme Soviet of the Armenian SSR (1975–1985 and 1990–1994; after 1991, the
Supreme Council of the Republic of Armenia) and the
Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union (1984–1989). In 1994, he founded the newspaper . == Death ==