She was born in Tehran, before her family repatriated to Armenia in 1975. She graduated from the philological department of Yerevan Pedagogical Institute. One of the founders of the literary journal “Inqnagir”, she currently serves as its editor. She participated to the International Writing Program (IWP) in Iowa (2009).
The author of five books of poems and a book of essays, Grigoryan has won the Writers' Union of Armenia poetry award for ‘True, I’m Telling the Truth’ (1991), the Golden Cane prize in literature for ‘The City’ (1998) and the Orange prize for the essays “Bridge to Tanya”.
Her poems have been anthologized in France, in the English-language collections The Other Voice: Armenian Women’s Poetry Through the Ages (2006) and Deviation: Anthology of Contemporary Armenian Literature (2008), in the Anthology of Armenian P.E.N Centre (Yerevan, 1999), “From Ararat to Angeltown” book by Emily Artinian (London, 2005); Arménie(s), (2006, Paris) and other anthologies. She has two books in French. Her poems are translated into French, English, Slovak, Macedonian, Georgian and Ukrainian.
Midnight
The black water came, I didn't go in,
the ash water came, I didn't go in,
the rust water came, I didn't go in,
the gold water came, I washed my hair in it,
the milk water came, I washed my face in it,
the rosewater came, I washed my body in it, and when the
clear water came, I jumped into the river, frolicked with a
mermaid, sang in the water, splashed in the water (under
my window, Maret yelled out