Ali Abdolrezaei


Abdolrezaei is a poet, writer and literary with over 70 books. Before leaving Iran in 2003 he was know as one of the most innovative poets of the Persian poetry. He has since been a prolific writer, and although he started to write in Persian with his Short and Little Like iran, Persian poetry and fiction remain the mainstay of his work.
Abdolrezaei is also known by Mouta or Rato Mouta, the bearer of light or the wise teacher in old Persian.

Life

Ali Abdolrezaei was born on 10 April 1969 in Northern Iran where he finished high school and graduated in Mechanical Engineering from Khaje Nasir University, Tehran.
Abdolrezaei's career as a poet began in 1986. Not long after, he was banned from teaching and from public speaking. In 1997, the country's new president decrease the level of censorship and Abdolrezaei’s new book,“Paris in Renault” was published in Iran. It received a vast attention and the majority of the critics, the newspapers and the top literary circles wrote and talked about his new view on language and specifically on postmodernism. This brought much deserved fame to Abdolrezaei and his prodigious ideas became influential among Iranian audience. This resulted in more surveillance of him by the government. Abdolrezaei was frequently invited to give lectures on poetry by different establishments but he only accepted those from universities, for this he became known as the “University Poet”. Being in contact with large audiences was frown upon by the government, so they soon banned him from public speaking and intensified the censoring of his writings.
Around year 2000 Ali Abdolrezaei began his close study of anarchism which continued for several years. Abdolrezaei has published many essays on the subject on internet, conveying a broader view to his Iranian readers speaking about it at underground events. He created the word “Iranarchism” and named his party after it. The focus of the Iranarchism was the many issues of the middle eastern societies from the perspective of anarchism. He published the manifest of Iranarchism in seven parts. First publication was as a text, on the Iranian website , in 2013, and then on YouTube as an audio presentation. In early 2016 he published his book "Anarchists are More Real", a selection of more than 400 pages of his writings.

Work

Abdolrezaei is one of the 34 international poets selected by the British Library. His recordings and their texts are kept in the Sound Archives in the British Library. His poems have been translated into many languages including English, German, Franch, Turkish, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, Croatian and Urdu. He was also the chair person of the Exiled Writers Ink in the United Kingdom from 2014 to 2016.
Abdolrezaei's fame as a poet spread out in the early 1990s in Iran. His poetry tackles difficult themes with his especial mastery of the craft. Poetry International says his "postmodern" poems "center on the problematic nature of language, knowledge and subjectivity."
He helped found the "Persian New Poetry" movement, writing colloquially about current themes rather than the traditional themes of emotion and nature. His array of poetry books endorse his poetic creativity and profound cerebral capabilities.
Abdolrezaei has been a prolific and controversial poet throughout his career. He has been described as "one of Iran's most influential poets" and "one of the most serious and contentious poets of the new generation of Persian poetry. He has been having an undeniable effect on poets and writers of different exercises.
It's been said that his poetry motivated a group of young poets to distance from the legacy of modern Persian poetry in order to establish the Persian New Poetry order. Abdolrezaei’s poetry shows that the contemporary art of Iran has been highly influenced by the traumatic historic events of the last four decades and that these events have affected millions of Iranians in one way or another. Abdolrezaei represents the artistic voice of a new, multi-faceted generation of Iranians and their cultural chasm with the past in the face of a repressive political regime.
His twelve volumes of poetries were published in Iran, the remaining in exile. In 2013, years after his self imposed exile and the publishing ban of his works in Iran, the government allowed his publisher to release four of his new books. These books were received so well by the readers that they were printed multiple times in just three months. However, seven months later his books were confiscated at the Tehran Book Fair, and he was banned again from further publication.

Interviews

, AN INTERVIEW WITH ALI ABDOLREZAEI, . In this interviews Abdolrezaei explains his poetic theory.
, Interview through email by Jack Little, UK/Mexico.
, Ali Abdolrezaei speaks to Paloma Concierta from where he now lives and writes, in exile, in London.
, Interviewer: Cathy Aitchison, It was recorded at the Platforma Festival in December 2011 in London.
, World Press Freedom Day special, Radio Netherlands Worldwide, 2010

Articles

Fragments: , , , Abol Foroushan, 2009
, , 2010
, ALI ABDOLREZAEI’S POETRY, , 2009

Festivals

Sens Public Festival, Paris, France, 2011.
Platforma Festival, London, UK, 2011.
Acts of Memory Festival, on human rights subject. Counterpoint, London, UK, 2011.
Poetes a Paris, Paris, France, 2012.
The First International Kosovo Poetry Festival, 2015.
The Writers Conference, Nottingham, UK, 2015. Abdolrezaei recited some of his poems and spoke on censorship.
Human Rights Poetry Festival. London, UK, 2016.
The Danger of Words in the Age of Danger Symposium, London,UK, 2017. Abdolrezaei spoke on the subject of censorship and post-censorship.

Awards

In 2013 his book “Mothurt” was selected as the “Book of the Year” in Iran. Over ninety of the best Iranian critics and poets participated in this event.
In 2014, “Lover mover” was selected as the second best book of the year in the same competition.