_________________________ Encyclopaedia Iranica Events

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Azar Nafisi is best known as the author of the national bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, which has been translated in 32 languages, and has won diverse literary awards, including the 2004 Non-fiction Book of the Year Award from Booksense, the Frederic W. Ness Book Award, the 2004 Latifeh Yarsheter Book Award, an achievement award from the American Immigration Law Foundation, as well as being a finalist for the 2004 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Memoir.  In 2006 she won a Persian Golden Lioness Award for literature, presented by the World Academy of Arts, Literature, and Media.

She is Visiting Professor and the executive director of Cultural Conversations at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., where she is a professor of aesthetics, culture, and literature, and teaches courses on the relation between culture and politics.  Azar Nafisi held a fellowship at Oxford University, teaching and conducting a series of lectures on culture and the important role of Western literature and culture in Iran after the revolution in 1979. She taught at the University of Tehran, the Free Islamic University, and Allameh Tabatabai before her return to the United States in 1997 - earning national respect and international recognition for advocating on behalf of Iran’s intellectuals, youth, and especially young women. In 1981, she was expelled from the University of Tehran for refusing to wear the mandatory Islamic veil and did not resume teaching until 1987.

Her new book, Things I Have Been Silent About: Memories, a memoir about her mother, was published in January 2009. She is currently working on a book entitled Republic of the Imagination, which is about the power of literature to liberate minds and peoples. She lives in Washington, D.C.


Shirin Neshat, a contemporary artist known for drawing upon her Iranian heritage for inspiration and her explorations of Islam and gender roles, uses art to address the complexities of the contemporary Muslim world through visually arresting imagery that highlights the separation of men and women in the public sphere. Shirin Neshat, born in Qazvin, Iran, moved to the United States in 1974 and received an MFA from the University of California, Berkeley. She currently lives and works in New York City.

Neshat has exhibited her photography, film, and video works internationally, and has had solo exhibitions at Stedelijk Museum CS in Amsterdam; Auckland Art Gallery in New Zealand; Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; Tate Gallery in London; Whitney Museum of American Art; and Philip Morris Branch in New York, among many other museums and galleries. In addition, her multimedia performance Logic of the Birds was presented at various venues including ArtAngel in London and Lincoln Center in New York.

Neshat is a recipient of numerous awards, including Lillian Gish Prize (New York); Hiroshima City Peace Award (Japan); Grand Prix, Kwangju Biennale (South Korea), and First International Prize at the 48th Venice Biennale (Italy). Neshat has just completed her first feature length film "Women Without Men," which is expected to be released in 2009.

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Najmieh Batmanglij has spent the past 30 years cooking, traveling, teaching, and adapting authentic Persian recipes to tastes and techniques in the West.     

Her book New Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies was called, “the definitive book of Persian cooking” by the Los Angeles Times. Her Silk Road Cooking: A Vegetarian Journey was selected as “One of the ten best vegetarian cookbooks of the year” by the New York Times; and her From Persia to Napa: Wine at the Persian Table won the Gourmand Cookbook Award for the world’s best wine history book of 2007.             

She is a member of Les Dames d’Escoffier and lives in Washington, D.C., where she teaches Persian and Silk Road cooking, lectures, and consults with restaurants around the world. Her most recent book is Happy Nowruz: Cooking with Children to Celebrate the Persian New Year, which inspired a Nowruz Day celebration event at the Sackler and Freer Galleries of Art in March 2009, where 7,500 attendees, including many children, celebrated the Persian New Year enjoying, amongst many activities, the Haji Firuz dancers and the Haji Firuz gingerbread cookies from Najmieh’s cookbook (picture courtesy of Mage Publishers - "From Persia to Napa", Mage, Washington D.C., 2006).



Etrat Elahi, a regular contributor to the Encyclopedia Iranica and an acclaimed advocate of Persian culinary art, received her BA in Philosophy and Child Psychology from Tehran University, and her Masters degree in Journalism from the London School of Journalism.

She migrated to the Unites States in 1979 and founded The Nutty Cookie Company a few years later. The company has enjoyed great success and has been featured in many publications, including Business Times and Food Network. Etrat Elahi’s personal and unique touch can bee seen and tasted in all of her award winning cookies.




M. R. Ghanoonparvar is Professor of Persian and Comparative Literature and Persian Language at The University of Texas at Austin. Professor Ghanoonparvar has also taught at the University of Isfahan, the University of Virginia, and the University of Arizona and was a Rockefeller Fellow at the University of Michigan.  

His publications are widely on Persian literature and culture in both English and Persian and include Prophets of Doom: Literature as a Socio-Political Phenomenon in Modern Iran (1984), In a Persian Mirror: Images of the West and Westerners in Iranian Fiction (1993), Translating the Garden (2001), Reading Chubak (2005), and Persian Cuisine: Traditional, Regional and Modern Foods (2006).  

His translations include Jalal Al-e Ahmad’s By the Pen, Sadeq Chubak’s The Patient Stone, Simin Daneshvar’s Savushun, Ahmad Kasravi's On Islam and Shi'ism, Sadeq Hedayat’s The Myth of Creation. Davud Ghaffarzadegan's Fortune Told in Blood, and Mohammad Reza Bayrami's The Tales of Sabalan; his edited volumes include Iranian Drama: An Anthology, In Transition:  Essays on Culture and Identity in Middle Eastern Societies, Gholamhoseyn Sa’edi’s Othello in Wonderland and Mirror-Polishing Storytellers, and Moniru Ravanipur’s Satan Stones and Kanizu.  

He was the recipient of the 2008 Lois Roth Prize for Literary Translation.  His most recent book is The Neighbor Says: Letters of Nima Yushij and the Philosophy of Modern Persian Poetry (2009) and his forthcoming books include Iranian Films and Persian Fiction, Literary Diseases, and a translation of Bahram Beyza'i's Memoirs of the Actor in a Supporting Role.   



Darioush Khaledi is a first generation Persian-American who graduated with a Masters Degree in Civil Engineering from Polytechnic in Tehran in 1968. He then moved to Los Angeles, California, with his family to start a new life. He continued to pursue his education, garduating from the University of Southern California’s Effective Management Program in 1981 and Cornell University Food Executive Program in July 1995.

Through hard work and determination, he overcame many obstacles and today heads a chain of 24 markets, under the banners of Top Valu Markets, Valu Plus Food Warehouse, and several other banners, all offering opportunities to more than 2,000 employees.  

Darioush’s fervor for the grocery industry has inspired him to serve on the Board of Directors of the Food Marketing Institute, Unified Western Grocers, Western Association of Food Chains, Inc., and as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the California Grocers Association for in 1996-97. In June of 1996, Darioush won the Entrepreneur of the Year award in Southern California.  In May of 2008, Darioush was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor giving tribute to those who have made enduring contributions to our nation.

Following his lifelong dream and passion for winemaking, he started the Darioush Winery in Napa Valley in 1998.  In just a few short years his wines are now rated by Wine Critics to be among the top 100 wines in the world.


Maideh Mazda Magee was born in Baku, Azerbaijan to Iranian parents. After finishing high school in Iran, she moved to the United States where she received her bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University (Douglass College) and a master’s in history and political science from the University of California at Berkeley.

After graduating from UC Berkeley she taught for 12 years at the Naval Language School in Washington, DC, teaching courses in Persian, Turkish, Russian, and English as a second language.  She also taught Persian at Georgetown University and Russian at Wayne State University.

Maideh is the author of a popular cookbook, first published by Charles Tuttle in 1960 and entitled In a Persian Kitchen.  The book – the first in English on Persian cooking – immediately attracted attention.  Maideh was interviewed by food editors from the many newspapers and magazines including the New York  Times and the Washington Post.

Since 1993 Maideh has been a docent at Hillwood Museum – Marjorie Merriweather Post’s home in Washington, D.C. – where she lectures about Mrs. Post’s collections of Russian and French decorative arts.


Nesta Ramazani is a freelance writer and lecturer in the Jefferson Institute for Lifelong Learning and the Department of Continuing Education at the University of Virginia, and has lectured extensively at other institutions of higher learning in the United States and abroad. Her lectures in the U.S. have included Georgetown University, University of Illinois, Washington and Lee University, State University of Illinois, and overseas include universities in Pakistan, Israel, Turkey and Germany. She has also been a guest lecturer at numerous civic organizations including The Virginia Festival of Books, The League of Women Voters, and The Women’s Club.

Her articles have been published in The Middle East Journal, The Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Affairs, and Middle East Insight. She is the author of The Dance of the Rose and the Nightingale and Persian Cooking: A Table of Exotic Delights (the new and Revised Edition of this book is to published in 2009). Most recently she has published “Human Rights of Women in Iran” in The Future of Liberal Democracy: Thomas Jefferson and the Contemporary World.

Her professional memberships include The Middle East Institute, The Association for Middle East Women’s Studies, American Association of University Women, FOCUS Women’s Resource Center, the University of Virginia Women’s Center, and The League of Women Voters.