Sholeh Wolpé

Sholeh Wolpé (Persian: شعله ولپی; born 1962 in Tehran, Iran) is an Iranian and American award-winning poet, author, playwright, librettist, and literary translator. She was born in Iran, writes in English, and translates literature from Persian. Her literary work includes seven collections of poetry, several plays, five books of translations and three anthologies, as well as short stories and texts and librettos for the choir and opera. She is the Writer-In-Residence at the University of California, Irvine.

The Poetry Foundation has written that “Wolpé’s concise, unflinching, and often wry free verse explores violence, culture, and gender. So many of Wolpé’s poems deal with the violent situation in the Middle East, yet she is ready to bravely and playfully refuse to let death be too proud.”

About her new translations of Iranian Sufi mystic Attar, who Rumi considered a master, Literary Hub writes: "Sholeh Wolpé’s stunning new translation—the first in over 30 years—renders Attar’s engaging, singular voice with wit and flourish.”

Wolpe's translations of Iran's rebel poet Forugh Farrokhzad is considered the most accurate and musical. Her translations in Sin: Selected Poems of Forugh Farrokhzad was awarded the 2010 Lois Roth Persian Translation. In their citation the judges wrote: “In Wolpé’s fresh and vital translation, a musical and compelling English version that draws the reader along and captures a sense of the exquisitely balanced pacing of Farrokhzad’s language, and the immediacy and authenticity of her voice, the members of the Lois Roth jury found themselves experiencing Forugh’s Persian poems with new eyes."