One of Iran’s leading poets, Azita Ghahreman’s work is lyrical and intimate, addressing themes of loss, exile and female desire, as well as the changing face of her country. Her latest collection, Negative of a Group Photograph, brings together three decades of poems brought to life in English by the poet Maura Dooley, working in collaboration with translator Elhum Shakerifar. The poems run the gamut of Azita’s experience: from her childhood in the Khorasan region of south-eastern Iran, to her exile to Sweden; from Iran’s book-burning years and the war in Iraq, to her unexpected encounters with love. At this bilingual event, Azita will read alongside Maura, who will share her English translations of Azita’s poems. This event is presented in partnership with the Manchester Literature Festival.
Azita Ghahreman is the author of five collections of poetry, Eve’s Songs (1991), Sculptures of Autumn (1995), Forgetfulness is a Simple Ritual (2002), The Suburb of Crows (2008) and Under Hypnosis in Dr Caligan’s Cabinet (2012). In 2013 she was a recipient of Swedish PEN’s Prince Wilhelm Award. Russian and Ukrainian translations of her poems were awarded the Udmurtia Russian Academy’s Ludvig Nobel Prize in 2014. She was born in Mashhad in 1962 and has lived and worked in Sweden since 2006.
Maura Dooley’s most recent poetry collections is The Silvering (2016). Her work has been shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Prize and received both an Eric Gregory and a Cholmondley Award. She teaches at Goldsmiths College, University of London and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
