Persian Poetry in Translation and Exile

The Center for the Art of Translation (CAT) is a San Francisco-based nonprofit that champions literary translation and the translators who bring underrepresented global writers to English-language readers. CAT builds a vibrant cross-cultural community through its award-winning publisher Two Lines Press, dynamic events that connect readers and translators, and the educational program Poetry Inside Out, which brings poetry translation into classrooms.

Persian Poetry in Translation and Exile | In collaboration between 836M and the Center for the Art of Translation/Two Lines Press.

The guests will read from their translations of Nadia Anjuman, Mahbouba Ibrahimi, and Ahmad Shamlou.

Guests:

• Diana Arterian
• Armen Davoudian
• Fatemeh Shams
• Niloufar Talebi

Door Open at 6.30PM, event starts at 7PM (1 hour long)

Guest Bios:

Fatemeh Shams is the author of: 88 (2013), Writing in the Mist (2014), When They Broke Down the Door (2016), and Hopscotch (2024). Her work has been translated into English, German, Kurdish and Arabic. She is the recipient of Latifeh Yarshater Book award (2016) and Poetry International Chapbook Prize (2023). Her work has been featured in Poetry, Two Lines, Kenyon Review, Michigan Quarterly Review among others. She is an associate professor of Persian literature at University of Pennsylvania.

Diana Arterian holds a PhD in Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Southern California and is the author of the poetry collections Agrippina the Younger (Northwestern University Press) and Playing Monster :: Seiche, which received a starred review in Publishers Weekly. Her work has been recognized with fellowships from the Banff Centre, Caldera, Millay Arts, Vermont Studio Center, and Yaddo. A Poetry Editor at Noemi Press, she writes “The Annotated Nightstand” column at Lit Hub and lives in Los Angeles.

Armen Davoudian is the author of The Palace of Forty Pillars and the translator, from Persian, of Hopscotch by Fatemeh Shams.

Niloufar Talebi is an author, award-winning translator, multidisciplinary creator, and Fulbright U.S. Scholar. She edited and translated Elegies of the Earth: Selected Poems by Ahmad Shamlou (World Poetry Books, 2025), the most comprehensive bilingual edition of the revolutionary Iranian poet in English, supported by a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship. Her Shamlou-inspired projects include the memoir Self-Portrait in Bloom and the opera Abraham in Flames (music by Aleksandra Vrebalov). Talebi also edited and translated Belonging: New Poetry by Iranians Around the World (North Atlantic Books).