Iranian Literary Arts Festival in San Francisco, February 5-6, 2009
The
Translation Project marks the 30th
Anniversary of the 1979 Iranian Revolution by gathering
diaspora poets from all over the world
Second Annual 'Iranian Literary Arts Festival' February
5-6, 2009
December 29, 2008-The
Translation Project and the San Francisco International Poetry Festival
announced today the second annual 'Iranian Literary Arts Festival'. Honoring
poets of the Iranian diaspora on the 30th anniversary of the 1979 Iranian
Revolution, the festival takes place February 5-6, 2009. All events are FREE
and OPEN to the public and are presented in partnership with the Friends of the
San Francisco Public Library and the Asia Society.
Featuring Iranian poets Ziba
Karbassi, Granaz Moussavi, Majid Naficy, Partow Nooriala, and Abbas Saffari, the
festival opens on Thursday February 5 at 6:30 pm at Book Bay Fort Mason with a
roundtable discussion entitled, "30 Years of Be-Longing." Poets whose works
appear in the new anthology, BELONGING: New Poetry by Iranians Around the
World (North Atlantic Books, August 2008)
will discuss the future
of diaspora literature. Friends of the SFPL Poet-In-Residence and an SF Poet
Laureate Jack Hirschman, and Isabelle Thuy Pelaud professor of Asian American
Studies at SFSU will also be a part of the roundtable. Moderated by Niloufar
Talebi, editor and translator of BELONGING.
Friday February 6 at 6:30 pm,
the poets will read their work and the Translation Project will screen footage
from its various multimedia projects based on this poetry, including the
multimedia theatrical piece, ICARUS/RISE, which premiered at the
Translation Project's 2007 Iranian Literary Arts Festival in San Francisco. The
February 6 celebration will be held the Friends of the SF Public Library's
offices at 391 Grove Street.
Both events are
FREE and OPEN to the public. Advance
registration is highly recommended:
"Close to one million Iranians
have left Iran since the 1979 Iranian revolution, including many artists. What
we've done here at the Translation Project is gather the poetry created outside
Iran in the Persian language and created the bilingual anthology, BELONGING,
and then created collaborative videos and theater projects based on this
exciting poetry. For example, ICARUS/RISE is a show we created to tell
the 30-year story of this immigrant community, drawing on the Iranian theatrical
spoken-word tradition of Naghali," says Niloufar Talebi, founder of the
Translation Project.
BELONGING: New Poetry by
Iranians Around the World,features three generations of poets, born
between 1929 and 1975. Varying dramatically in style, tone and theme,
the anthology features, among others, the five poets reading at the Iranian
Literary Arts Festival. Recent political developments, including the
shadow of a new war, have obscured the fact that Iran has a long and splendid
artistic tradition ranging from the visual arts to literature. Western readers
may have some awareness of Iranian works thanks to a few breakout successes
like Reading Lolita in Tehran and My Uncle Napoleon, but the
country's strong poetic tradition remains little known.
BELONGING
remedies that situation with a rich selection of recent poetry by Iranians
living all around the world. Eclectic and accessible, these vibrant poems
deepen the often limited awareness of Iranian identity today, by not only
introducing readers to contemporary Iranian poetry, but also expanding the canon
of significant writing in the Persian language. BELONGING offers a
glimpse at a complex culture through some of its finest literary talents.
Founded in 2003, The Translation Projectwww.thetranslationproject.org brings
contemporary Iranian literature to wide audiences through events, and innovative
book and multimedia projects.
Friends of the San Francisco Public Library is a member-supported, non-profit organization that fundraises, advocates,
and provides financial support for the San Francisco Public Library.
Asia Society Northern California
is the leading global
organization working to strengthen relationships and promote understanding among
the people, leaders, and institutions of Asia and the United States. We seek to
enhance dialogue, encourage creative expression, and generate new ideas across
the fields of policy, business, education, arts, and culture.
"Niloufar Talebi's
accomplishment in gathering the poetry of the Iranian Diaspora is unprecedented
and breathtaking. It is as if she has, by force of commitment and vision, and by
way of cultural hunger, bequeathed a new literary heritage to Iran and the
world. Here is a lyric symphony of utterance in the voices of exiles,
immigrants, refugees, and expatriates. That Talebi assembled such an
extraordinary collection is impressive enough-that she translated most of these
poems herself is nothing short of remarkable." -Carolyn Forché, editor of Against
Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness
"In Belonging,
with literary skill and passion, Niloufar Talebi has made a major contribution
to the recognition of contemporary Iranian literature in the West, to the
appreciation of Diaspora poetry by Persian speakers everywhere, and to the
important project of producing good translations from rich but underrepresented
literary canons for the Anglophone reader." -Nahid Mozaffari, editor of the PEN
Anthology of Contemporary Iranian Literature
"Poetry is a world art because of brilliant
editors and translators like Niloufar Talebi ... Here are the poets, in all
their power, defiance, dignity, wildness, and lyric grace, scattered across the
earth, yet united in this book. Here is proof that poetry humanizes: now
contemporary Persian culture has a face, and the Persian tongue a voice, for
those of us in the English-speaking world, and we are all richer for it." -Martín Espada, Pulitzer Prize nominee and author
of The Republic of
Poetry
"Niloufar Talebi has accomplished the ultimate
magic trick in her clean and modern translation. She has made the work of modern
Persian poets read like original English ... an unparalled contribution." -Willis Barnstone, author of With
Borges on an Ordinary Evening in Buenos Aires
"After reading her
introduction and the first few sections of Belonging, I realized that Talebi had
accomplished perhaps the greatest service that a translator of Iranian poetry
for American audiences can provide: she made the Iranian poetic landscape feel
familiar. Not only familiar, but modern, full of laughter, rich with wonder,
completely joyful and terrible and worthy of revisiting multiple times."
-Peter
Conners, Three Percent
Press contact: Katie
Ambellan, Friends of the San Francisco Public Library
