Born in 1974, I was raised in Tehran, Iran. I originated from Azerbaijan, but I went to primary, guidance, and high schools in the eastern part of Tehran.
My mother was from Tehran with Turkish and Kurdish origins and my father was from Tabriz, Azerbaijan whose father was raised in Baku, studied Medicine in Moscow, and then moved to Iran during the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. That is why I am bilingual and speak Turkish and Farsi as my mother tongues. I was brought up with the Persian, Turkish, and somehow Russian languages and traditions.
I did not speak even a word until I was 3 years old. I uttered my first words on my third birthday while my uncle had taken me to a toy shop to buy me a toy train. I remember that I looked at the toy cars inside the shop as well as the real cars passing by outside and said: "Small cars [showing the toy cars], big cars [showing the real cars]." My uncle rushed back home immediately and the family celebrated the first words of my life. I spent the first years of my life in a big house with a large courtyard embellished with various trees, bushes, flowers, and water fountains in a northwestern city called Khoy. This spacious beautiful house has been reflected in some of my plays, poems as well as my unpublished novel called “In the Doghouse.”
My mother was from Tehran with Turkish and Kurdish origins and my father was from Tabriz, Azerbaijan whose father was raised in Baku, studied Medicine in Moscow, and then moved to Iran during the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. That is why I am bilingual and speak Turkish and Farsi as my mother tongues. I was brought up with the Persian, Turkish, and somehow Russian languages and traditions.
I did not speak even a word until I was 3 years old. I uttered my first words on my third birthday while my uncle had taken me to a toy shop to buy me a toy train. I remember that I looked at the toy cars inside the shop as well as the real cars passing by outside and said: "Small cars [showing the toy cars], big cars [showing the real cars]." My uncle rushed back home immediately and the family celebrated the first words of my life. I spent the first years of my life in a big house with a large courtyard embellished with various trees, bushes, flowers, and water fountains in a northwestern city called Khoy. This spacious beautiful house has been reflected in some of my plays, poems as well as my unpublished novel called “In the Doghouse.”
My mother, a kind-hearted housewife as well as an art lover, although not highly educated, and my father a ground forces general and an army doctor who had no interest in art despite of his remarkable education and his hidden artistic talents, taught me synchronously love and discipline.
Oh, by the way, I am left-handed and this was not the only thing which gave me a hard time in my childhood, my father's anti-art mindset held me back from my real passion, i.e. literature and art until I became independent. Really tough going!
My family moved to Tehran when I was five and resided in the eastern part of Tehran shortly after the Islamic Revolution. I began my primary school with my elder brother in a branch of a highly-ranked educational institute called National School which was established by the Shah. After a short time, the newly-established Islamic regime shut it down and we joined a public school to continue our studies. I kicked off my secondary school in the same area but under the Islamic education system. It was a torturous journey. Such dark days! Although my art teachers used to describe me as artistically talented. I finished my high school on the subject of socioeconomics and took up my undergraduate studies at the ECO College of Insurance Management in which I had no f… interest but saw it through because the official language of the college was English and that was a great chance for me to hone my English.
Oh, by the way, I am left-handed and this was not the only thing which gave me a hard time in my childhood, my father's anti-art mindset held me back from my real passion, i.e. literature and art until I became independent. Really tough going!
My family moved to Tehran when I was five and resided in the eastern part of Tehran shortly after the Islamic Revolution. I began my primary school with my elder brother in a branch of a highly-ranked educational institute called National School which was established by the Shah. After a short time, the newly-established Islamic regime shut it down and we joined a public school to continue our studies. I kicked off my secondary school in the same area but under the Islamic education system. It was a torturous journey. Such dark days! Although my art teachers used to describe me as artistically talented. I finished my high school on the subject of socioeconomics and took up my undergraduate studies at the ECO College of Insurance Management in which I had no f… interest but saw it through because the official language of the college was English and that was a great chance for me to hone my English.
I was raised in an intellectual family environment. My siblings were well-educated. I was at the beginning influenced by my brother who was a movie fan at younger ages and now is a well-known scriptwriter and film director as well as by my sister who was into social sciences, especially sociology.
Books have always been the most important part of my family life, that’s why I began to read literature, poetry, etc. when I was pretty young. My father used to read books to me, books such as Kelileh and Demneh, a classic collection of meaningful animal fables which comes from the Indian literary traditions and contains various topics like extolling the virtues of family, social responsibility, ethics, as well as statesmanship. The western literary equivalence of this book might be Aesop Fables. However, despite my father's good will, I am happy to say that reading got me always distracted from my school work and got me into trouble from time to time.
Among the kids who wished or were forced to wish to become a doctor, lawyer, etc., I was not only fascinated by writing and art, especially music, theater and writing but I knew that one day I will become a writer. It is a fact that my writing was built upon the foundation of my reading.
I began to read the Persian classic literature, especially Rumi, when I was a teen. I also was quite fascinated by modern short stories, particularly the works of great modern Iranian writer, Sadegh Hedayat. The first Persian book which influenced me to a great extent was Hedayat's novel called Dash'Akol. I read it at the age of 13. I began to read intensively the non-Farsi literature as well created by many different writers such has Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen, George Orwell, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Milton, Bronte family, Joseph Conrad, D. H. Lawrence, John Donne, William Butler Yeats, etc. after a couple of years. This was the first step for me to get familiar with the western literature. Later on, I began to read more of ancient drama (Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Menanderus, Seneca, Plautus, etc.), modern drama (Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neill, David Mamet, Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, Samuel Beckett, Edward Albee, Clifford Odets, Sarah Kane, etc.) which strengthened my creative imagination.
Books have always been the most important part of my family life, that’s why I began to read literature, poetry, etc. when I was pretty young. My father used to read books to me, books such as Kelileh and Demneh, a classic collection of meaningful animal fables which comes from the Indian literary traditions and contains various topics like extolling the virtues of family, social responsibility, ethics, as well as statesmanship. The western literary equivalence of this book might be Aesop Fables. However, despite my father's good will, I am happy to say that reading got me always distracted from my school work and got me into trouble from time to time.
Among the kids who wished or were forced to wish to become a doctor, lawyer, etc., I was not only fascinated by writing and art, especially music, theater and writing but I knew that one day I will become a writer. It is a fact that my writing was built upon the foundation of my reading.
I began to read the Persian classic literature, especially Rumi, when I was a teen. I also was quite fascinated by modern short stories, particularly the works of great modern Iranian writer, Sadegh Hedayat. The first Persian book which influenced me to a great extent was Hedayat's novel called Dash'Akol. I read it at the age of 13. I began to read intensively the non-Farsi literature as well created by many different writers such has Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen, George Orwell, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Milton, Bronte family, Joseph Conrad, D. H. Lawrence, John Donne, William Butler Yeats, etc. after a couple of years. This was the first step for me to get familiar with the western literature. Later on, I began to read more of ancient drama (Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Menanderus, Seneca, Plautus, etc.), modern drama (Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neill, David Mamet, Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, Samuel Beckett, Edward Albee, Clifford Odets, Sarah Kane, etc.) which strengthened my creative imagination.
In addition to Iranian classic and modern poets (Hafez, Rumi, Ferdowsi, Saadi, Nezami, Khayyam, Attar, E'tesami, Forough, Shamlou, Simin Behbahani, Hushang Ebtehaj, Mehdi Akhavan-Sales, Iraj Mirza, etc.), I attempted to go meticulously through the eastern and western poetry (William Shakespeare, Robert Frost, Pablo Neruda, Oscar Wilde, John Keats, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Dante Alighieri, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, etc.) as well.
In the coming years I wrote a book on modern English poets, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and William Butler Yeats. In the final months of my military service period, I started my professional career with translating plays, books and poems into Farsi. Working more than 17 hours a day, I have familiarized Iranians with several western writers, thinkers and artists. I have worked with major publishing companies in Iran and some of my books have been republished 18 times. I have lived in Greece, Athens, since 2010. Since then I have written and translated several plays (including the books of Iakovos Kambanellis), books (including I Think with My Eyes: A Research on the Visual Theater of Robert Wilson) and essays.
In the coming years I wrote a book on modern English poets, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and William Butler Yeats. In the final months of my military service period, I started my professional career with translating plays, books and poems into Farsi. Working more than 17 hours a day, I have familiarized Iranians with several western writers, thinkers and artists. I have worked with major publishing companies in Iran and some of my books have been republished 18 times. I have lived in Greece, Athens, since 2010. Since then I have written and translated several plays (including the books of Iakovos Kambanellis), books (including I Think with My Eyes: A Research on the Visual Theater of Robert Wilson) and essays.
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