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M.R. Ghanoonparvar

PhD

Academic Profile

M. R. Ghanoonparvar is Professor of Persian and Comparative Literature at The University of Texas at Austin. Ghanoonparvar has also taught at the University of Isfahan, the University of Virginia, and the University of Arizona and was a Rockefeller Fellow at the University of Michigan. He has published widely on Persian literature and culture in both English and Persian and is the author of Prophets of Doom: Literature as a Socio-Political Phenomenon in Modern Iran (1984), In a Persian Mirror: Images of the West and Westerners in Iranian Fiction (1993), Translating the Garden (2001), Reading Chubak (2005), and Persian Cuisine: Traditional, Regional and Modern Foods (2006). His translations include Jalal Al-e Ahmad’s By the Pen, Sadeq Chubak’s The Patient Stone, Simin Daneshvar’s Savushun, Ahmad Kasravi's On Islam and Shi'ism, Sadeq Hedayat’s The Myth of Creation. Davud Ghaffarzadegan's Fortune Told in Blood, Mohammad Reza Bayrami's The Tales of Sabalan, and Bahram Beyza'i's Memoirs of the Actor in a Supporting Role; his edited volumes include Iranian Drama: An Anthology, In Transition: Essays on Culture and Identity in Middle Eastern Societies, Gholamhoseyn Sa’edi’s Othello in Wonderland and Mirror-Polishing Storytellers, and Moniru Ravanipur’s Satan Stones and Kanizu. He was the recipient of the 2008 Lois Roth Prize for Literary Translation. His most recent book is The Neighbor Says: Letters of Nima Yushij and the Philosophy of Modern Persian Poetry (2009) and his forthcoming books include Iranian Films and Persian Fiction and Literary Diseases in Persian Literature. He has served as a board member of many professional organizations and has also served as the President of the American Association of Teachers of Persian and the Texas Association of Middle East Scholars. He was the organizer and Program Chair of the Fourth Biennial Conference of the Association for Iranian Studies.