Parvin E'tesami
پروین اعتصامیThe most celebrated woman poet of early modern Iran, whose debate poems give voice to the poor, the orphaned and the overlooked.
- Known for
- Her Divan, 1935
- Forms
- Monazereh (debate poem), Qasida, Masnavi, Qet'a
- Places
- East Azerbaijanآذربایجان شرقی
- Tehranتهران
- Qomقم
- Collection
- Contemporary
Parvin was born in Tabriz and grew up in Tehran in a house full of books. Her father, Yusef E'tesami, was a writer, translator and publisher who taught her Persian and Arabic literature at home. She graduated from the American College for Girls in Tehran in 1924.
Her signature form is the monazereh, the debate poem, in which two things argue, a needle and a thread, a pot and a pan, a rich man's cloak and a poor man's patch, and the dispute becomes a parable about pride, injustice and charity. The manner is classical, in the line of Naser Khosrow and Sa'di; the sympathy for the poor, for orphans and for women is her own.
Her Divan appeared in 1935 with a preface by Mohammad-Taqi Bahar. A brief marriage ended within months. She died of typhoid in Tehran in 1941, aged 34, and is buried in her family's tomb at the shrine of Fatemeh Ma'sumeh in Qom.
Her poems are out of copyright in most countries with a life-plus-70 term, but modern English translations usually are not. We publish only translations we have commissioned or have permission to use.
Booksکتابها
The principal works of Parvin E'tesami.
The Divan of Parvin E'tesami
دیوان پروین اعتصامیHer only collection published in her lifetime, introduced by Bahar. Its debate poems, fables and moral pieces set objects, animals and people arguing about wealth, labour and justice, and it made her the best-known woman poet in Iran. Its moral seriousness and plain, exact Persian have kept it on school syllabuses and family bookshelves ever since.
The Divan of Parvin E'tesami (enlarged edition)
دیوان پروین اعتصامیThe second, enlarged edition, prepared by her brother Abolfath E'tesami after her death and including poems not in the first. Arriving months after her early death, it fixed the shape of her work for later readers, and it is the basis of most of the editions read today.
Parvin E'tesami in Iranian history
Iranian historyAfsharids, Zands and Qajarsافشاریان، زندیان و قاجاریان
A soldier-king who sacked Delhi, a regent who rebuilt Shiraz, and a dynasty that made Tehran the capital and lived through Iran's Constitutional Revolution.