Rafayel Israyelyan

Born in Yerevan. She graduated from the Oriental languages department of the Faculty of Philology of Yerevan State University. For many years she worked in the art and literature department of the Public Radio of Armenia and at the journal "Sovetakan Hayastan" ("Soviet Armenia") of the Committee for Cultural Relations with Diaspora Armenians. From 1995 she was a member of the Writers' Union of Armenia. She wrote numerous books. Her interviews with great Armenians and her essays later became a book, "Buyl metsats" ("Constellation of the Great"). Alongside her journalism she wrote for children and adults. She wrote stories, novellas, radio plays, film scripts and prose poems. Her works were broadcast on the radio and published in the Armenian press and abroad: in the USA, Uruguay, Lebanon, France and Syria. She was a member of the Journalists' Union of Armenia. In 2001 she was awarded the title "Woman of the Year" by the Biographical Institute of North Carolina, USA; in 2004 a certificate of the International Confederation of Journalists' Unions (RA); in 2006 the commemorative medal of the RA Prime Minister; and in 2008 the Mkrtich Sargsyan Literary Prize. She died in Yerevan.