Goli Taraghi Awarded Bita Prize for Literature and Freedom

On November 12th, Iranian Americans gathered at Stanford University to honor Goli Taraghi, who was awarded the Second Annual Bita Prize for Literature and Freedom.

Born in Tehran, Taraghi is one of contemporary Iran’s most eminent writers and essayists, as well as a remarkable story teller in the tradition of Iran’s Shahrzads. She began her career with a collection of short stories entitled I Am Che Guevara, and has since authored many other books including Winter Sleep, In Another Place and Scattered Memories. Her recent collections of stories are The House of Shemiran and The Three Maids. Taraghi traveled from Iran to accept the award and deliver her talk titled, “My Two Worlds”.

The Bita Prize for Literature and Freedom is part of the Bita Daryabari Endowment in Persian Letters at Stanford University’s Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies. The annual prize is given to an artist of Iranian ancestry whose work has, in the course of that year, singular achievements in both the realm of aeshetics and in the essence of defending the right of the artists to create freedom from any fetters.

Bita Daryabari embodies the spirit of humanist philanthropy. Born in Iran, she has always taken great interest in the world of ideas and literature, particularly the poetry and prose of Iran. She has created the Bita Daryabari Endowment in Persian Letters at Stanford University enabling the University to not only hire visiting and full-time professors of Persian literature, but also allowing the Iranian Studies Program to organize conferences, teach more courses in Persian language for all levels of proficiency and offer the annual Bita Prize for Literature and Freedom.

Click here to learn more about the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies, which is directed by the renowned scholar and author, Dr. Abbas Milani whose work and contribution to this article we acknowledge and appreciate.