"The Oasis of Now" by Sorab Sepehri [Why This Book Should Win]
We’re only hours away from announcing the two winners of this year’s BTBA awards, but it’s never too late to promote one of the finalists. The piece below was written by BTBA poetry judge, Bill Martin. The Oasis of Now by Sorab Sepehri, translated from the Persian by Kazim Ali and Mohammad Jafar ...
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Why This Book Should Win: "The Colonel" by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi [BTBA 2013]
As in years past, we will be highlighting all 25 titles on the BTBA Fiction Longlist, one by one, building up to the announcement of the 10 finalists on April 10th. A variety of judges, booksellers, and readers will write these, all under the rubric of “Why This Book Should Win. You can find the whole series by clicking ...
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Latest Review: Belonging
Our latest review is of Belonging: New Poetry by Iranians Around the World, edited and translated by Niloufar Talebi. Niloufar is an extremely talented translator and performer, and runs the very impressive Translation Project, which promotes contemporary Iranian literature through a variety of media. A great example of ...
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Censorship of Literature in Iran
This past Sunday, the Guardian ran a very troubling article about a publishing crackdown in Iran: After the 1979 Islamic revolution, the government imposed strict rules on book publishing. Since then, the Ministry of Culture has been charged to vet all books before publication, mainly for erotic and religious ...
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Persian Literature
The current Quarterly Feature at ArteEast is It Deserves and Commands Your Attention, a fascinating collection of Persian fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Here’s editor Richard Jeffrey Newman summary of the contents: I will not pretend that the poems, essays and stories gathered here represent anything other ...
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