Abstract
Iraj Jannatie Ataie (b. 1947), renowned in Iran as a poet, playwright and songwriter, was imprisoned under the Shah and is now in exile from the Khomeini regime. He lives in Britain, where several of his plays have recently been staged to great critical acclaim. Prometheus in Evin, staged in Farsi at the Royal Court in London last year, was hailed by The Guardian as ‘a brilliant and compelling universal story … which must place [Ataie] in the forefront of international playwrights today’. The play, which examines with ruthless honesty the lot of. the intellectual under repressive regimes, has now been produced in English (in Ataie's own translation) by the Mazdak Theatre Group (Young Vic Studio, 3–22 October 1988).
A benefit reading of Ataie's poems, in aid of the Kurdish refugees, will be held at the Young Vic on 16 October 1988.
The poems below were written in English.