author
d. 1920
An Armenian-American editor and storyteller, remembered for helping bring Armenian folk tradition into English for new readers. Best known for The Golden Maiden, he gathered tales with a strong sense of place, wonder, and oral storytelling.
A. K. Seklemian, also listed as A. G. Seklemian and identified by LibriVox as Abraham K. Seklemian, was an Armenian-American editor and author. He is associated above all with The Golden Maiden, and Other Folk Tales and Fairy Stories Told in Armenia, first published in 1898, a collection that introduced English-language readers to Armenian folk narratives.
Available sources describe him as part of the Armenian diaspora that came to the United States after the Hamidian massacres of 1895–96. He and his wife reportedly settled in Fresno, California, where he became the first editor of Asbarez, an Armenian-American bilingual newspaper that continued long after his lifetime.
His surviving reputation rests on cultural preservation as much as authorship. Rather than writing in a purely literary style, he worked as a collector and reteller of stories heard from ordinary people, helping save a body of Armenian folklore that might otherwise have remained little known outside Armenian communities.