Reza Baraheni, Iran

Reza Baraheni was born in Tabriz, Iran. He is the author of 54 books, including the Crowned Cannibals, a collection of prose and poetry, and Les Saisons en Enfer du Jeune Ayyaz, a novel. His God's Shadow: Prison Poems is a collection of poems based on a period of 102 days spent in solitary confinement in Iran, during the time of the Shah. He was also imprisoned in the fall of 1981 and the winter of 1982 by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Active for the last 35 years in trying to promote democratic liberties in his country, Baraheni was a signatory to a 1994 open letter to the world calling for artistic freedom and an end to censorship. He is one of two scholars to join the new Scholars-at-Risk Program at U of T's Massey College and is presently a visiting professor at the university's Centre for Comparative Literature. He is President of PEN Canada.