About the Author
Majid Naficy was born in Iran in 1952. His first collection of poems in Persian called In the
Tiger’s Skin, was published in 1969. One year later his book of literary criticism,
Poetry as a Structure, appeared. In 1971 he wrote a children’s book,
The Secret of Words, which won a national award in Iran.
In the 1970s, Majid was politically active against the Shah’s regime. However, after the 1979 Revolution, the new regime began to suppress the opposition, and many people, including his first wife, Ezzat Tabaian and brother, Sa’id, were executed. He fled Iran in 1983 and spent a year and a half in Turkey and France. Majid then settled in Los Angeles where he lives with his son, Azad. He has since published five collections of poems, After the Silence, Sorrow of the Border, Poems of Venice, Muddy Shoes, and Twelve Poems in Love: A Narrative as well as two books of essays called In Search of Joy: A Critique of Male-Dominated, Death-Oriented Culture in Iran, and Poetry & Politics and Twenty-Four Other Essays. He is currently a co-editor of Daftarhaya Kanoon, a literary journal published by The Iranian Writers’ Association in Exile.
Majid Naficy holds his doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from the University of California at Los Angeles. His doctoral dissertation, Modernism & Ideology in Persian Literature: A Return to Nature in the Poetry of Nima Yushij, was published by University Press of America, Inc. in 1997.
