Forugh Farrokhzad: A New Edition of Her Collected Works with Domenico Ingenito

Professor Domenico Ingenito discusses his 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.) offering a critical edition and Italian translation of Forugh Farrokhzad’s entire poetic production.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.Dr. Ingenito’s new 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.Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts.