Reza Baraheni (1935-2022) is one of the twentieth century's major writers, whose work transverses poetry, novels and essays. With more than sixty books of poetry, fiction, literary theory and criticism to his name (oft-cited as a "founder of modern literary criticism in Iran," the Washington Post), he is revered as a key figure in contemporary Persian literary culture. Baraheni's works have been translated into several languages, and he has taught at universities in Iran, the United States, and Canada. Imprisoned under the Shah in 1973, he was arrested in Tehran; Baraheni claimed he was tortured and kept in a solitary confinement for 104 days-see God's Shadow, Prison Poems (Indiana University Press, 1976), and The Crowned Cannibals (Random House, 1977)-and his involvement in the formation of the Consulting Assembly of the Writers Association of Iran necessitated his exile from the Islamic Republic. In Sweden, and in the United States thereafter, he joined the American branch of the International PEN, working very closely with such authors and poets as Edward Albee, Allen Ginsberg, and Richard Howard at PEN's Freedom to Write Committee. With Kay Boyle, Baraheni acted as the Honorary Chair of the Committee for Artistic and Intellectual Freedom (CAIFI) to release Iranian writers and artists from prison. A celebrated and insightful commentator on literary freedom(s), his prose and poetry has been published in such periodicals as Time Magazine, the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, and the American Poetry Review. Eventually settling in Canada, Baraheni lived in exile in Toronto, and held post as a visiting professor at the University of Toronto's Centre for Comparative Literature and as president of PEN Canada (2001-2003).
