Self-Portrait in Bloom

In the aftermath of World War II, “a new dynamism” was taking shape in Persian poetry. Award-winning translator Niloufar Talebi explains how Iranian poets were increasingly instrumental in “freeing Persian poetry from the state of decline and stagnation.” Into this backdrop emerges the poet Ahmad Shamlou in this part-memoir, part-biography, and part-history of literature in Iran. “There are two bo...