I was seventeen when I began teaching myself how to read...

07:40:00 10.03.2026

I was seventeen when I began teaching myself how to read and write in Armenian, because I had never attended an Armenian school. I used to go to Armenian bookstores in Glendale, California buy school textbooks, and quite literally learn everything from scratch. After a few months I was already able to read regular books, and one of the first books I read was Nzhdeh’s Selected Works (the thin edition). In the years that followed I also read Nzhdeh’s writings piece by piece, deeply accepted his ideas, and tried to apply them in my own life as much as possible.

Recently, however, I finished the large volume of Nzhdeh’s Selected Works, and today I can say one very simple thing: there are two types of Armenians in the world — those who have read Nzhdeh’s Selected Works, and those who have not.