He is also notable for his novel "Akabi's Story" (Akabi Hikâyesi), published in 1851 in Turkish written in the Armenian script (a not unusual practice in the 19th century),[citation needed] and for having published the bilingual magazine Mecmua-i Havadis, an important reference in the history of the Turkish written press.

[citation needed] His novel is, according to the Austrian Turkologist Andreas Tietze who re-edited it and had a transcription published in 1991, the first genuine novel published in Turkey or, according to another viewpoint, "one of the five early, contemporaneous and intermediate works of fiction that were clearly distinct from earlier prose traditions in both Divan and folk literature, and that approximate novelistic form.

[citation needed] Rising through the ranks of the state bureaucracy, he was promoted to the rank of "Pasha" at the same time as his assignment as a founding member to the Ottoman Academy (Encümen-i Daniş), established along lines similar to those of the Académie française and which also acted as a consultative council for the Sultan.

Furthermore, although a Catholic himself, Vartan Pasha is totally impartial in his observations on the behavior of the characters from the two communities, advantaging neither one nor the other, and not shying away from criticizing both.

The loved one dominates the relationship and the lover has to suffer a lot and make many efforts to reach his beloved, and this well after the brief initial period of happiness till the tragic end.