Of Armenian descent, Zahrad was born in the Nişantaşı district of Istanbul, Turkey. His father, Movses, had been a jurist, adviser, and translator for the Ottoman Foreign Ministry. However, he had lost his father at the age of three.
His mother, Ankine, was from the district of Samatya.
In 1942 he graduated from Özel Pangaltı Ermeni Lisesi, the local Mechitarist Armenian lyceum. He attended the Faculty University of Medicine in Istanbul but left in order to work.
Due to the fear that his family wouldn"t appreciate the fact that he wanted to be a poet, he changed his pen name to "Zahrad". Levon Ananyan, the president of the Writers Union of Armenia, characterized Zahrad as "the huge oak tree of diasporan poetry, whose literary heritage had a deep and stable influence upon modern poetry of not only the diaspora, but also Armenia." Writer and journalist Rober Haddeciyan is quoted as saying, "all the roads of our poems take don"t lead to Rome, but to Zahrad". His poetry has been translated into 22 languages.
