Her work also contributed to the Armenian intellectual movement called Zartonk (the awakening), along with other female authors such as Srpuhi Dussap and Zabel Asatur (Sibyl).

[7] The tragic fate of the Armenians in Cilicia is also the subject of her book In the Ruins (Աւերակներու մէջ, Istanbul 1911), the novella The Curse (1911), and the short stories "Safieh" (1911), and "The New Bride" (1911).

She was the only woman on the list of Armenian intellectuals targeted for arrest and deportation by the Ottoman Young Turk government on April 24, 1915.

During the Great Purge, implemented by Stalin, Yesayan was accused of "nationalism," abruptly arrested in 1937, and was exiled to prisons spanning from Yerevan to Baku.

In late-nineteenth-century Constantinople, women including Srpuhi Dussap and Gayaneh Matakian hosted Armenian intellectual salons to provide a space for people to discuss ideas, literature, and politics.

[11] She went on to publish short stories, literary essays, articles, and translations in both French and Armenian in periodicals such as Mercure de France, L'Humanité, Massis, Anahit, and Arevelian Mamoul (Eastern Press),Ecrit pour l'Art, La Grande France and in the Armenian Magazines Tzolk (Light), Mer Ugin (Our Way) and Arşav (Race).

One of her lesser known works, Krakedi Më Hishadagner (Memories of a Writer, 1915) written in Bulgaria, portrays Ottoman Turkish executions of prominent Armenians on April 24, 1915.

This period of her life led to the novels The Last Cup (Վերջին բաժակը), and My Soul in Exile (Հոգիս աքսորեալ, 1919; translated into English by G.M.

[16] Yesayan also spoke out for Armenian women, challenging traditional gender roles and social expectations such as education and labor.

[18] While visiting Soviet Armenia, Yesayan portrayed the social and political conditions in the novel Retreating Forces (Նահանջող ուժեր, 1923).

[19] Lara Aharonian, founder of the Women's Resource Center of Armenia, and Talin Suciyan, Yerevan correspondent for the Turkish Armenian newspaper Agos directed a documentary film about her titled Finding Zabel Yesayan.

"[22] In 2022 a life-size monument dedicated to Zabel Yesayan was unveiled in the village of Proshyan, Kotayk Province of the Republic of Armenia, in the area of Zapel Esayan Agribusiness Center.

The works published included My Home, an excerpt from Yesayan's memoir titled The Gardens of Silihdar; Yesayan's eyewitness account of the Adana massacre of 1909, titled In the Ruins; and a mystery story called The Man, which had previously been published in a collection called My Soul in Exile and Other Writings.