Mohsen Emadi (Persian: محسن عمادی) (born 29 October 1976) is an Iranian-Mexican poet,[1]translator and filmmaker. Born and raised in Iran, he left for Finland in 2009 and has resided primarily in Mexico since 2012, working as a lecturer and researcher in poetry and comparative literature for various institutes in the country.
Mohsen Emadi was born in Sari, in northern Iran province of Mazandaran. He began writing poems during childhood and appeared in numerous magazines as a young adult.
Although he has spent some time in the United States, Emadi reportedly left in early 2017 after then president of the United States, Donald Trump, made Executive Order 13769, which would temporarily ban citizens of various Muslim-majority countries.[2]
Poetry
His first poetry collection, La flor en los renglones (The Flower on the Lines), was published in Spain in 2003.[4][5][6]
He has been featured at many international poetry festivals, including the International Poetry Festival of Mexico City, Barcelona Poesia, the International Poetry Festival of Moncayo,[7] Mahalta International Poetry Festival,[8][9] the International Symposium on Rumi (Turkey, 2007),[10] International Symposium on Nietzsche (Finland),[11] and Association of Writers & Writing Programs.[12] His poetry has been recognized with the 2010 Premio Poesía de Miedo, the IV Antonio Machado Fellowship, an ICORN Fellowship, and the 2015 Poets from Other Worlds honor from the International Poetry Fund.
Following a series of conversation with Antonio Gamoneda and Clara Janés, on a trip to Granada in 2010, Emadi began working on a series of documentaries with themes around poetry, reality and exile.[22] The first of the series is Querido Antonio, a poetic documentary on the influence of the Spanish Civil War on the work of Antonio Gamoneda,[23] which in turn resulted in the publication of De la realidad y la poesía. Tres conversaciones y un poema, (published by Vaso Roto Ediciones, Mexico, 2010).[24][25]
His other documentaries include La Unica Patria, featuring the last interview with Juan Gelman,[26] and Un Poeta y Su Exilio, on the exile of Luis Cernuda in Mexico.[27]
Emadi is the founder and editor of several Persian websites, including The House of World Poets, a Persian anthology of world poetry with over 50 translators collaborating on introducing world poetry to the Persian language.[30] He also holds the rights for digital publishing of the works of Ahmad Shamlou, including Ketâb-e Kucheh (The Book of Alley), and is the director of his official website.[31][32][33][34][35]
Contemporary Persian and Classical Persian are the same language, but writers since 1900 are classified as contemporary. At one time, Persian was a common cultural language of much of the non-Arabic Islamic world. Today it is the official language of Iran, Tajikistan and one of the two official languages of Afghanistan.