About the Author
Iraj Mirza Jalalu'l-Mamalek was born in 1874 in Tabriz. He had an excellent education at the House of Sciences and Techniques in Tabriz and became fluent in several languages including French, Russian, Arabic, and Turkish. He married at the age of fifteen, and by nineteen he had lost both his wife and his father. Subsequently, he was offered the position of court poet that his father had held. Later, he abandoned the court and worked for the government. Iraj's fluency in French and Russian and his trip to Europe deepened two of his unshakeable beliefs: that Iran needed to modernize and that a crucial part of that modernization process included the emancipation of women. During the aftermath of the First World War, Iraj was an advisor to the American financial mission, which he accompanied on several inspection tours throughout the country. Near the end of his life, Iraj moved back to Tehran, where he died at the age of fifty-two on March 14, 1926. Iraj was buried in the Zahir-Dowleh Cemetery located between Darband and Tajrish in Shemiran, north Tehran.Mahmood Karimi-Hakak, Artistic Director of Mahak International Inc. and President of Festival Cinema Invisible (CinemaInvisible.com), is a poet, writer, translator, theater director, and filmmaker. His literary credits include five plays, two books of poetry, several translations, and numerous articles and interviews both in English and Persian. He is the recipient of Raymond C. Kennedy (2005) and Fulbright (2009) scholastic awards. Mahmood has produced, directed choreographed and designed, over 60 stage plays, dance performances, and films. His artistic works have participated in several national and international film and theatre festivals in America, Europe, and his native Iran, and have gained him a number of certificates and awards. Professor Karimi-Hakak has taught at CUNY, Towson, and Southern Methodist universities in America, as well as universities in Belgium and Iran. At present, he serves as Professor of Creative Arts at Siena College in New York.Bill Wolak is a poet who lives in New Jersey and teaches Creative Writing at William Paterson University. He has just published his ninth collection of poetry entitled The Art of Invisibility. His most recent translation with Mahmood Karimi-Hakak, Your Lover's Beloved: 51 Ghazals of Hafez, was published by Cross-Cultural Communications in 2009. His translations have appeared in such magazines as The Sufi Journal, Basalt, Visions International, World Poetry Journal, and Atlanta Review. His critical work and interviews have appeared in Notre Dame Review, Persian Heritage Magazine, Gargoyle, Southern Humanities Review, The Paterson Literary Review, Ascent, Florida English, and Prime Numbers Magazine. Mr. Wolak has been awarded several National Endowment for the Humanities scholarships and two Fulbright-Hays scholarships to study and travel in India. In 2007, he was selected to participate in a Friendship Delegation to Iran sponsored by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, America's largest and oldest interfaith peace and justice organization. During the Summer of 2010, Mr. Wolak was awarded a Field Study Opportunity in China and Japan by the National Consortium for Teaching About Asia. He was selected to be a featured reader at festivals in India three times: first at the 2011 Kritya International Poetry Festival in Nagpur, then at the 2013 Hyderabad Literary Conference, and most recently at the Tarjuma 2013: Festival of Translators in Ahmedabad.
