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Writer Reza Baraheni was born in 1935. An Azerbaijani from Iran, he is an accomplished poet, novelist and theorist who has written more than 50 books. In 1977, Harper’s Magazine called him “Iran’s finest living poet.” His work includes Crowned Cannibals (Vintage Books, 1977) a collection of prose and poetry, Les saisons en enfer du jeune Ayyaz (Fayard, 2000), and The Infernal Times of Mr. Ayaz, published in Alberto Manguel’s anthology, God’s Spies (Macfarlane Walter & Ross, 1999). His God’s Shadow: Prison Poems (Indiana University Press, 1976) is a collection of poems based on a period of 102 days spent in solitary confinement in Iran during the time of the Shah. He was also imprisoned in the fall of 1981 and the winter 1982 by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Active for the last 35 years trying to promote democratic freedom in his country, Baraheni was a signatory to a 1996 open letter to the world calling for artistic freedom and an end to censorship. He now lives in Canada where he is president of PEN Canada and a visiting Professor at the University of Toronto.
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