As a teenager in Herat, Afghanistan, Nadia Anjuman attended the Golden Needle School in which a group of women gathered to meet and discuss literature with local professors under the guise of practicing needlepoint, a pastime approved by the Taliban government. In 2001, with Afghanistan’s liberation from the Taliban, Anjuman began attending Herat University and soon published a book of poetry entitled Gul-e-Dodi / Dark Flower. Her readership was not limited to Afghanistan; Gul-e-Dodi / Dark Flower found readers in Iran, Pakistan, and beyond. She continued to write poetry despite the objections of her husband and his family, and she was set to publish a second volume of poetry in 2006 entitled Yek Sàbad Délhoreh / A Wealth of Worry. In November 2005 Anjuman’s husband beat her, and she ultimately died from the assault. In 2007, the Iranian Burnt Books Foundation published Divâne Sorudehâye Nadja Anjoman / The Complete Poems of Nadia Anjuman. Gul-e-Dodi / Dark Flower has been reprinted three times and sold over three thousand copies. This is the first publication of her complete works in English.
Diana Arterian was born and raised in Arizona. She currently resides in Los Angeles where she is a doctoral candidate in Literature & Creative Writing at the University of Southern California. Her work has been recognized with fellowships from the Banff Centre, Caldera, Vermont Studio Center, and Yaddo, and her collaborative translations of Anjuman's poetry have appeared in Apogee, Asymptote, Aufgabe, Brooklyn Rail, Circumference, Eleven Eleven, Exchanges Journal, International Poetry Review, National Translation Month, North American Review, and Two Lines.
Marina Omar was born in Afghanistan and has worked as an interpreter for Afghan refugee families. She is currently a Doctoral Candidate in Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia.
