Author Description

A bilingual book of poetry (English and Persian). The collected short poems in this volume have originally been written in English and later translated into Persian during the last four years. The reader may rightly ask why I have not written the poems in my native tongue Persian. One reason, honestly, is that consciously or unconsciously, I can't help but stand in awe of powerful Persian poetry! Yes, I have always had a great sense of inferiority when I read the works of Hafez, Sadie, Khayyam, Shaamlu, Akhavan, etc. Secondly, I am a student of English language and literature, and in a sense through writing poetry in this language, I can learn a lot. At the same time, I believe, writing in English is a form of resistance and writing back to the imperial power. The ways in which I, as an Iranian, use the English language is complex. However, as my supervisor Bill Ashcroft rightly remarks: "One of the main features of imperial oppression is control over language." (The Empire Writes Back: 7). Language becomes the medium through which a hierarchical structure is perpetuated, and the medium through which conceptions of 'truth', 'order', and 'reality' become established. Such power is rejected in the emergence of an effective post-colonial voice.