Forugh Farrokhzad, Poet of Modern Iran - 9781848851566

Forugh Farrokhzad was a pioneering Iranian poet and filmmaker, whose reputation as a path-breaking female rebel made her an iconic figure of her time. Both her unconventional personal life and her captivating creative trajectory have captured the imaginations of generations of Iranians since she published her first poems in the mid-1950s. More than four decades after her death at the age of 32, Farrokhzad has come to represent the spirit of revolt against patriarchal and cultural norms in modern Iran. Her life and work continue to be pivotal not only to understanding Persian literary modernity and the rise of women's writing in Iran, but also to mapping the struggle of Iranian women for their rights.

During her lifetime Farrokhzad embodied the vexed predicament of the contemporary Iranian woman, at once subjected to long-held traditional practices and influenced by newly introduced modern social sensibilities. Highlighting her literary and cinematic innovation, this book examines the unique place Farrokhzad occupies in Iran, both among modernist Persian poets in general and as an Iranian woman writer in particular. The authors also explore Farrokhzad's appeal outside Iran in the Iranian diasporic imagination and through the numerous translations of her poetry into English. Forugh Farrokhzad, Poet of Modern Iran is a fitting and authoritative tribute to a remarkable woman, one which will introduce her works and legacy to a twenty-first-century audience.

`Forugh Farrokhzad, Poet of Modern Iran sets in every way a new milestone in the study and understanding of this extraordinary poet. This volume is now clearly the single most important critical study of Farrokhzad in English, and can be warmly recommended to anyone with an interest in Persian poetry, the intellectual history of Iran, and Iranian women.' Franklin Lewis, Associate Professor of Persian, University of Chicago.

`Nearly half a century after her death, neither a biography nor a critical study of Forugh Farrokhzad's poems has appeared in English. In the light of this situation, everyone who has read Farrokhzad or read about her will welcome this volume.' Michael Craig Hillmann, author of A Lonely Woman: Forugh Farrokhzad and Her Poetry.