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Gevorg Ter-Gabrielyan

Goodreads Author

Born

Yerevan, Armenia

Website

http://gtergab.com

Genre

Fiction, Science Fiction, Memoir

Influences

William Faulkner, Hrant Matevossyan, A. and B. Strugatskie

Member Since

August 2012

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Gevorg Ter-Gabrielyan contributes fiction and essays in Armenian and Russian, as well as journalism, reviews, and policy pieces in Armenian, Russian and English to a variety of media outlets, on topics ranging from literature to international relations to management to Caucasus conflict transformation and peace-building to European integration to Armenia’s development issues to etc.

He is a protagonist of the Methodology of Systemic Thought Activity (MSTA). He is a developer and editor of several handbooks and manuals. His first book of fiction and publicism in Armenian, Square Cellar, was published in 2012.

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What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Gevorg Ter-Gabrielyan 2023. There are too many types of writing for any advice to be worth for everybody. I am a writer also because I started to read early and I read a lo…more2023. There are too many types of writing for any advice to be worth for everybody. I am a writer also because I started to read early and I read a lot of fiction in childhood, adolescence, and youth. This is a known advice - read a lot, I add to that: read since childhood as long as you can, because at some point adults stop being intense readers. It is even more difficult today to become a real reader because of the internet. Anyway.
In addition, think. Thinking is not easy. What we think is thinking is usually just our psychological processes. That is not thinking. I cannot explain what is thinking in two words here, but I have written and explained what is Systemic Thought Activity elsewhere.
A part of being able to think is to be able to break taboos - particularly those taboos that the society or power impose on us not to allow for creativity and freedom to flourish. Do not break the taboo 'thou shalt not kill,' but break taboos concerning (nonviolent) sex, rituals, and imagining negative turn of events (that the peer pressure wants to prohibit you from imagining) alongside with the positive one. Overcome peer pressure, societal pressure, and power pressure.
Stereotypes are small taboos. Stereotypes are ubiquitous, they are not just about race, ethnicity, gender, etc. If you have not imagined the phenomenon behind any word, any notion, you will use that word as a stereotype. Imagine phenomena behind notions, use untypical formulations. Many people say journalism is a good school for fiction writing. I am not at all sure about that. In my opinion, journalism is often full of stereotypes and stereotyping in the sense that I said above, whereas fiction writing is about describing the world anew, with new, unusual words and sentences, rather than using the existing stereotypes.
Wrestle with language. Best fiction that I like may be written in a flowless style, an adventures book or Bulgakov's "Master and Margarita," or written with a complex language, like Faulkner or Dostoievskiy, but in any case best fiction prose is a result of wrestling with language; but such that the readers do not feel it when they read your book.

Learn all your life, using particularly reflection, introspection: why are you like that, how to better achieve one's goals, how do you change over time, what did you understand and conclude about the past, about life?

Don't be upset if they don't like your writing or if it does not generate acclaim, but at the same time don't be arrogant and self-centered, and look for a bit of a lesson from every criticism.

That's enough for now.

I like the writings of writers, from whose writings I can feel that they possess the above qualities. These writers are a bit like me. I am not too much of an omnivore, there are many good writings that may be assessed as excellent by many people but they leave me personally unperturbed. This is very subjective. (less)

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What are you currently working on?

Gevorg Ter-Gabrielyan 2024. Since there are no killings on Armenia-Azerbaijan separation line for a few months now, I was able to finish the work I started in Spring 2020, …more2024. Since there are no killings on Armenia-Azerbaijan separation line for a few months now, I was able to finish the work I started in Spring 2020, when the quarantine was set because of the Coronavirus pandemic. Then, being locked at home, I started to write a series of fiction stories which had to relate to Corona and have a fantastic or science fiction component in them. I fully finished five of them, which were published either very soon or in a year or two. I also finished the drafts of two additional stories and left them to edit in the future. My idea was to write ten stories and publish a book entitled Decaviron, playing with an association to Decameron. I thus worked until July 2020 when other duties took precedence over my writing, then there was a short war on the separation line between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and my capacity to write diminished, and on September 27, 2020 the full scale war started in Nagorny Karabakh, which went on for 44 days and ended up with several thousand people killed from both sides. It was impossible to write primary fiction either during that time or immediately afterwards, especially because hostilities did not end. While I was not personally involved in the war, several of my good acquaintances were, and Armenia is a small country, I didn’t feel like the war had nothing to do with me, I felt like I was caught in a war. After this stage of the war ended, other stages continued, shootings, incursions in the territory of Armenia proper, and killings. Then, in December 2022, the siege of Karabakh Armenians started, and in September 2023 another war broke out, and they were all forced to leave Karabakh / Artsakh for Armenia. Now they are refugees, and the century-long Armenian inhabitation of Karabakh / Artsakh seems to have come to an end. During all this period I couldn’t write any fiction starting from a scratch. I did work on several texts and published three fiction books, one in each of 2021, 2022 and 2023, editing and finishing the stuff that I had written earlier on. However, the concept of Decaviron was frozen, I had only seven stories and couldn’t make myself to write the other three. I did finish one additional story in January this year. It seems the thing that made me write primary texts from the scratch was gone because of the wars: Russia’s full-fledged war with Ukraine started on February 24 2022 and added to the Armenia-Azerbaijan war, and it was also contributing to my incapacity to write first-hand texts. Now, while that war continues on unabated, the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan has subsided, as I said above, there are no killings at least for a few months, although I am afraid to mention this because they may start anew any moment. Perhaps this very relative calm helped me rediscover my capacity to write primary fiction. In the last month, while on vacation, I did finish three other stories and now, depending on how the book will shape, while it will be called Decaviron, it may have more than 10, at least 11 stories in it. The reason for my agraphia, in addition to mass killings of young boys, was also the fact that the 30-year-long history of Armenians having won a war against Azerbaijan in Karabakh ended with a crushing defeat, and Artsakh / Karabakh ceased to be inhabited by Armenians. This meant a turning point in the centuries-old history of Armenians. One may ask, how does this affect fiction writing, apart from emotional distress and trauma, which are both fully understandable? The thing is that writing while Karabakh was inhabited by Armenians meant one world view, which determined a certain style of writing, a certain psychology, a certain world to be presented in fiction. I was for peace and for a solution with no war, where both nations accommodate each other the best they can. This did not happen. The world changed drastically. This was another reason for my incapacity to write. I believe if another stage of war starts, I will not be able again to write primary fiction. So I am in a hurry somehow, although the handicap I felt in the recent years does not let me to feel very agile yet. I assume I will not be anymore the same kind of writer I was before.
As an illustration, here is a link to one of my stories from the Decaviron series, translated in English: https://www.gtergab.com/en/news/proje... (less)

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Gevorg Ter-Gabrielyan’s books

Average rating: 4.31 · 54 ratings · 17 reviews · 13 distinct works

	Յաթաղան սինդրոմ 4.50 avg rating — 10 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Անաստված կինո թատրոն 4.10 avg rating — 10 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Դեպի վեր: Հայ ֆանտաստ գրողների պատմվածքների ժողովածու by Gevorg Ter-Gabrielyan (Goodreads Author), Arsen Tavadyan, Lilith Manaryan 4.22 avg rating — 9 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Հանդուրժողականության և անհանդուրժողականության դրսևորումները հայ գրականության մեջ by Gevorg Ter-Gabrielyan (Goodreads Author), Anush Margaryan, Isabella Sargsyan (Editor) 3.50 avg rating — 8 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Հրապարակ նկուղ by Gevorg Ter-Gabrielyan (Goodreads Author), Նատալի Հարությունյան (Illustrator), Հակոբ Հովհաննիսյան (Illustrator) it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 2013	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Հրանտ it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 3 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Կարճ բարդիների հարցը it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Armenia 3.0 it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2020	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Թալինթ Պֆեսթ it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Մեծ Տիեզերափայլ it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Gevorg Ter-Gabrielyan's Blog: Writer's blog

Պատասխաններ ընթերցողների հարցերին/Answers to readers' questions

Այս տարի պոդքաստ է արվում՝ ընթերցողների ինձ տված կուտակված հարցերի՝ իմ հանրային պատասխանները: Դնեմ այստեղ չորրորդ մասը, որի կոմենտարներում կտեսնեք նախորդները որտեղ են:

I am in a podcast answering readers' questions. The good thing is there is an automatic translation of closed captions available, and although I cannot vouch that it is very good, but I am sure it gives a bit of info on my thinking Read more of this blog post »

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Published on May 10, 2026 01:34

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Gevorg liked an answer from Gevorg Ter-Gabrielyan: What are you currently working on? 2024. Since there are no killings on Armenia-Azerbaijan separation line for a few months now, I was able to finish the work I started in Spring 2020, when the quarantine was set because of the Coronavirus pandemic. Then, being locked at home, I start See Gevorg’s answer. Gevorg
May 10, 2026 01:37AM
Gevorg liked Gevorg Ter-Gabrielyan's blog post: Պատասխաններ ընթերցողների հարցերին/Answers to readers' questions "Այս տարի պոդքաստ է արվում՝ ընթերցողների ինձ տված կուտակված հարցերի՝ իմ հանրային պատասխանները: Դնեմ այստեղ չորրորդ մասը, որի կոմենտարներում կտեսնեք նախորդները որտեղ են: I am in a podcast answering readers' questions. The good thing is there is an..." Read more of this blog post »
May 10, 2026 01:37AM
Gevorg rated a book it was amazing Թալինթ Պֆեսթ by Gevorg Ter-Gabrielyan (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Հարցազրույց վեպի մասին. https://mediamax.am/am/specialproject... ...more
Feb 10, 2026 03:37AM · 2 likes · like · see review
Gevorg answered Goodreads's question: What are you currently working on? 2024. Since there are no killings on Armenia-Azerbaijan separation line for a few months now, I was able to finish the work I started in Spring 2020, when the quarantine was set because of the Coronavirus pandemic. Then, being locked at home, I start See Full Answer
Aug 10, 2024 11:12AM · 1 like · like