Renowned poet Alicia Ghiragossian passed away on Thursday, May 22, at her residence in Los Angeles at the age of 78.
Born in 1936 in Cordoba, Argentina, Alicia Ghiragossian has authored numerous volumes of poetry in both Armenian and Spanish. Among her works was also a translation of Raffi’s “The Fool” to Spanish.
She started writing in Spanish at the age of fourteen. Her first poetry book was published in 1966 and her sudden rise to fame occurred in 1967 when her second book was translated into Italian and published in Italy with the illustrations of Picasso, Fontana, Petorutti, Presta and Le Parc.
In Argentina, she graduated from the University of Buenos Aires as an attorney, yet she always pursued arts and literature. She constantly wrote poetry and performed as stage actress. And many composers, such as internationally acclaimed Argentine tango icon Astor Piazzolla, composed music inspired by her poetry in 1969.
Dr. Ghiragossián has conducted workshops in Modern Poetry at UCLA, given lectures at universities in various countries and participated in world congresses. Throughout her life she has won the respect, endorsement and admiration of several world icons and Nobel Peace Laureates, such as His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, John Hume and Dr. Oscar Arias Sanchez.
In 2007, she received an Award from the Philosophical Academy of Armenia, “for her meta-dimensional philosophy in poetry.” She was honored, as well by the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia with the title of “honorary doctor.”
