Iranian Studies Book Launch: Io parlo dai confini della notte [I Speak from the Edges of the Night / من از نهایت شب حرف میزنم]

Forugh Farrokhzad, Io parlo dai confini della notte [I Speak from the Edges of the Night / من از نهایت شب حرف میزنم  ], critical edition of all Persian texts and Italian translation by Domenico Ingenito, Milan: Bompiani, 2023, 800 pp.

Forugh Farrokhzad (1934-1967) is the first female Iranian poet who playfully renegotiated the formal rules and dominant imagery of classical Persian poetry and wrote about sex and desire from the perspective of women. After publishing four collections of poetry (Asir, Divār, ‘Osiyān, Tavallodi digar) and working on a number of short films and documentaries, she received international acclaim at film festivals in Germany and Italy. It was only after Farrokhzad’s untimely death and, most notably, following the publication of her posthumous poetry collection (Let’s Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season, 1974), that her voice gained global recognition, thanks to the contributions of scholars and translators from around the world. Until recently, due to censorship and editorial misunderstandings, no reliable editions of Forugh Farrokhzad’s collected works were available on the market.

Domenico Ingenito’s new book, من از نهایت شب حرف می‌زنم / Io parlo dai confini della notte/ I Speak from the Edges of the Night (Bompiani 2023, 800 pp.) fills this gap by offering a critical edition and Italian translation of Forugh Farrokhzad’s entire poetic production. The book features the Persian text of all the original collections of poetry published by Farrokhzad during her lifetime, along with pieces published posthumously, verses co-authored with Yadollah Roya’i, lines extracted from the film Khāne siyāh ast, as well as Farrokhzad’s proto-feminist afterword to Asir (1955).

This edition includes a literary biography of Farrokhzad’s life and works as well an annotated critical study that traces the editorial development of Farrokhzad’s poetry collections until the time of her death.

Bio:

Domenico Ingenito is Associate Professor of Iranian Studies and premodern Persian Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles, Bahari Fellow in the Persian Arts of the Book (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford), core faculty member of the Pourdavoud Center for the Study of the Iranian World, and former director of the UCLA Program on Central Asia (2016-2021). His research interests center on ancient and medieval Iran, Persian poetry, visual culture ofiran and Central Asia, gender and translations studies, and premodern manuscript culture.