Parvin E'tesami

Rakhshandeh E'tesami, universally known as Parvin E'tesami, was born in Tabriz and raised in Tehran by her father, the prominent editor and translator Yusof E'tesami. Taught Persian and Arabic literature by leading scholars like Dehkhoda and Malek o-Sho'ara Bahar, she graduated from the American High School for Girls in Tehran and served as head librarian at Daneshsara-ye Aali.

Parvin was a poetic prodigy who revived the classical monazereh (dialogue/debate poem) form. Her allegorical dialogues—between a weeping orphan and a king's crown, a needle and thread, or an ant and a grain of wheat—exposed social injustice, moral hypocrisy, and the exploitation of the poor with sublime linguistic perfection before her tragic death from typhoid at thirty-four.