Perhaps the reader won’t believe what happened to Swedish-Armenian writer Vahe Avetyan in America, but it’s a fact. I’ll start from the beginning.
Vahe had called from Florida in September. It turned out that he had come from Stockholm (where he has been living for the past decade) to America as a tourist for meetings and get material for writing his next book. He traveled to Miami, Washington, New York and finally Los Angeles.
Everything would have gone smoothly if it weren’t for that fatal evening at the Glendale Public Library. The “National” (ARF cultural wing) had organized an evening dedicated to writer Vahe Oshakan. In response to the remark made by one of the speakers, claiming that “the “National” hasn’t always shone light on Armenian writers”, Vahe Avetyan had first shouted “that’s a lie” and then had tried “to explain what he meant” on stage. But the audience didn’t allow Vahe to say anything. They shouted “quiet” and tried to make him get off stage. According to Vahe, he didn’t realize what was going on due to the shining of the lights on stage. He only felt that people were aggressive towards him. After a while, some pushing and shoving took place, during which there was a call made to the police.
While arresting Vahe, the American police officer told Vahe that he had to pay 5,000 dollars for bail and they would release him. But according to the writer, they had told him 20,000 dollars. Vahe spent three days in the Los Angeles jail until his friends were able to collect the money needed. Currently, Vahe is waiting for the court trial. Why did this happen? Vahe explains: “They had no order to start a fight; it’s like an unknown person talking in the village of Vardenik and the villagers of the Martuni region attack him to make him shut up”.
What are you going to do? Are you going to work in order to pay the money back? Vahe has no response to these questions. He says: “I’m an Armenian writer, a living classical writer and I’m not obligated to work for that money. You can write that Vahe had a house and was smoking cocaine openly.”
Writer Vahe Avetyan currently lives with his friends in an apartment, smokes cocaine and often meets with his colleagues in Los Angeles. He says that Los Angeles is full of decentralized and interesting Armenians and he is getting ready for the Armenian National Assembly elections, when he hasn’t even lived in Armenia for the past decade. “I don’t accept that constitutional clause of living permanently in Armenia to get elected and I am disobedient to that,” he says.