Welcome to The Bombay Review’s Iranian Edition (Vol I and II).

This two volume series is part of our effort to bring international literature and new writing to The Bombay Review readers, who are largely based out of South Asia and the United States. A brainchild of Kaartikeya Bajpai, it is part of a decade long project, with three more years to go, involving a discussion and showcase of international writing to our audiences in South Asia and the United States. A delicately hand picked curation of art and writing, this edition has opened the doors to larger literary cooperation with Iran, with a possible event and reading later this year.

The two issues are edited and compiled by Dr. Nilofar Shidmehr. A Ph.D., MFA, she is the author of two collections of short fiction and four books of poetry in English and Farsi. She also co-translated with Ali Azarang Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye into Farsi. Dr. Shidmehr teaches in the Liberal Arts Program and Adults 55+ program at Simon Fraser University. She was born and raised in Iran and currently lives in Canada. Her website is here.

A selection of work from the Iranian Edition.
(Scroll at the end of page for the full issues)

Iranian Edition (Vol II) | Essay by Amir Ahmadi Arian | Issue 40 (2021)

Amir Ahmadi Arian teaches literature and creative writing at CUNY City College in New York City.  His work has appeared in The New York Times, Paris Review, New York Review of Books, Al Jazeera, London Review of Books, Electric Literature, Rumpus, Michigan Quarterly Review, Words Without Borders, the Guardian, Lithub, and elsewhere. He is the…

Iranian Edition (Vol II) | Art by Fereshteh Najafi | Issue 40 (2021)

Fereshteh Najafi, an Iranian illustrator, attained a Bachelor of Graphic Design and Master in Illustration at the Azad Art University of Tehran. In 2008, she immigrated to Genova, Italy, where she directed her creative work through illustration for children’s books. In recent years Fereshteh has worked both on illustration and giving workshops in Italy, Brazil…

Iranian Edition (Vol II) | Poetry by Roger Sedarat | Issue 40 (2021)

Roger Sedarat is a professor of poetry and literary translation in the MFA Program at Queens College, City University of New York. He is the author of four poetry collections: Dear Regime: Letters to the Islamic Republic, which won Ohio UP’s 2007 Hollis Summers’ Prize, Ghazal Games (Ohio UP 2011), Foot Faults: Tennis Poems (David…

Iranian Edition (Vol I) | Poetry by Golnoosh Nour | Issue 39 (2021)

Golnoosh Nour teaches Creative Writing at the University of Bedfordshire and has a radio programme on Soho Radio Culture. Nour studied English Literature at Shahid Beheshti University and gained a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from Birkbeck College, University of London. Her debut short story collection The Ministry of Guidance was published in 2020, the debut poetry…

Iranian Edition (Vol II) | Poetry by Mohsen Emadi | Issue 40 (2021)

Mohsen Emadi is an Iranian/Mexican poet, translator, programmer and filmmaker. He has published the poetry books La flor en los renglones (Lola Editorial, Spain, 2003), We never talked about her eyes (Goo Publishing, Iran, 2007), Las leyes de gravedad (Olifante, Spain, 2011), Visible como el aire, legible como la muerte (Olifante, Spain, 2012), Abismal (CrC,…

Iranian Edition (Vol I) | Fiction by Azarin Sadegh | Issue 39 (2021)

Azarin Sadegh was born in Iran. She studied computer science at Bourgogne University (France) and years later moved to California working as a software engineer in IBM and a few other firms. She was a 2011 PEN America Emerging Voices and also completed advanced novel writing courses through UCLA Extension Writers’ Program where she was…

Iranian Edition (Vol I ) | Poetry by Bänoo Zan | Issue 39 (2021)

Bänoo Zan is a poet, librettist, translator, teacher, editor and poetry curator, with more than 200 published poems and pieces along with three books. Song of Phoenix: Life and Works of Sylvia Plath, was reprinted in Iran in 2010.  Songs of Exile, her first poetry collection, was released in 2016 in Canada by Guernica Editions.…

Iranian Edition (Vol II) | Poetry by Saeed Yousef | Issue 40 (2021)

Saeed Yousef is a former professor of Persian language and literature at the University of Chicago (2002-2020). He began writing and publishing poems in mid-1960s. A political prisoner under the Shah (1971-74), he had to leave Iran after the revolution and went to Germany as a refugee. Yousef has published about 10 books of poems,…

Iranian Edition (Vol I) | Poetry by Mehrnaz Bassiri | Issue 39 (2021)

In 2011, Mehrnaz Bassiri made the riskiest and most rewarding decision of her professional life: she traded her career in biotech for educational development. She is now an educator, progress specialist, and the founder of MyGradeBooster. Mehrnaz is the recipient of Futurpreneur Canada’s “The Sky’s Your Limit Entrepreneur of the Year” award and she has…

Iranian Edition (Vol II) | Photography by Samad Ghorbanzadeh | Issue 40 (2021)

Samad Ghorbanzadeh, born in Oroumieh in 1984, holds a Bachelor of Graphic Design from Ferdowsi University in Mashhahd and a Masters in Photography from Tehran University of Art. His work has been featured in numerous personal and group exhibition and Installations such as Art Fact Tashkent, Mohsen Art Gallery, Silk Road (Rah-e-Abrisham) Gallery, Shirin Art…