Sepideh Jodeyri
Sepideh Jodeyri is an Iranian poet, literary critic, translator and journalist living in Washington DC, United States.
A winner of the in 2015 for one of her poems, Chãk, and a graduate in chemical engineering from Iran University of Science and Technology, Jodeyri has published several works, including six poetry collections, a collection of short stories and an anthology of her poems. Her articles and interviews have been published in Iranian newspapers and magazines as well as European ones. She has also translated poetry books by Edgar Allan Poe and Jorge Luis Borges as well as the graphic novel, Blue Is the Warmest Color by Jul Maroh into Persian.
In the aftermath of the highly contested 2009 presidential election in Iran, which resulted in the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Jodeyri spoke publicly in support of the pro-democracy movement. Shortly after, Jodeyri's works were banned inside Iran, her close friends were put in prison, forcing her to leave the country and move to Italy in February 2011. She stayed two years in Italy as the guest writer of ICORN. Jodeyri, her husband and her son live in Washington DC, the United States right now.
Works
She translated Blue is the Warmest Color, as Abi Garmtarin Rang Ast. Conservative groups in Iran criticised her. There was a plan for a debut of this translation in Tehran, but it was later canceled.Khorshid Prize
Because of her belief in Feminism, she founded a feminist prize, the Khorshid Prize in 2008 with the stated aim of recognizing "the best poetry book of the year written by an Iranian woman." The prize included 5 Bahar-e Azadi gold coins. Sponsored by Alghadir hospital chair Farideh Farhadi, ophthalmologist Fatemeh Haghbin, biologist Azam Paki and poet-critic Fatemeh Salarvand, the judging committee included Jodeyri herself, poet-translators Azita Ghahreman and Pegah Ahmadi, poet-critics Roya Tafti, Bahareh Rezaei and Mehri Jafari. The prize was being held for four years inside Iran though it was declared banned after Jodeyri left the country in 2011. The chairwoman she had assigned on behalf of herself and one of their sponsors were being interrogated by Iran's intelligence service agents several times at the time.Awards
- Winner of, ‘The Best Poem in the World’ in 2015 for one of her poems, Chãk. The prize is based in Spain and includes 2000 Euros.
- Nominated for Karnameh Poetry Prize in Iran in 2000, for her first poetry book, Dreams of an Amphibious Girl.
Lectures and Workshops
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- . SOAS, University of London, 2014.
- , Coquitlam Public Library, British Columibia, Canada, 2014.
- , International Literature Festival Dublin, 2015.
- , two panels: "Education as a Tool for Political Manipulation" and "Iran, Today and Tomorrow".
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Articles and Interviews
- , Freemuse Website, 2012.
- , The Guardian, 2015.
- , Fair Observer, 2014.
- , Fair Observer, 2014.
- , PlayGroundMagazine, Spain, 2015.
- , Small Media, 2015.
- , Fair Observer, 2015.
- , Scottish PEN, SoundCloud, October 2015.
- , Dangerous Women Project, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, the University of Edinburgh, April 2016.
- , Literary magazine, PLAV, Prague, Czech Republic, 2016.
- , Fair Observer, 2017.
Samples of Work
- , Dangerous Women Project, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, the University of Edinburgh, April 2016.
- , translated by Dr. Fereshteh Vaziri Nasab, video of the poetry recitation, the International Day of the Imprisoned Writer, the Scottish Parliament, 15 November 2017.
- , translated by Dr. Fereshteh Vaziri Nasab, video of the poetry recitation, the Scottish PEN's Many Voices Project, University of Glasgow, 16 November 2017.
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- , CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, March 19, 2009.
- , translated by Dr. Fereshteh Vaziri Nasab, Fair Observer, 2017.
Literary criticism
- Mohammad Motlagh
- Pegah Ahmadi
- Alireza Behnam
- Mehri Jafari