Join us for an evening with internationally acclaimed Iranian-American author Moniro Ravanipour. Ravanipour was born in Jofreh, a village on the coast of the Persian Gulf. Her birthplace has had a substantial impact on her writing career. In addition to children stories, Ravanipour has written many short stories, several novels, and a few screenplays. Her short stories have been translated into many languages. Ravanipour's short stories have been published in PEN America, World Literature Today, and CONSEQUENCE Magazine. She has also had presentations all around the world, in countries such as Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, England, Turkey, Canada, and in more than twenty-two state in the United States. She received fellowships from Brown University and BMI (Black Mountain Institute) at the University of Nevada. Ravanipour was among seventeen activists to face trial in Iran for their participation in the 2000 Berlin Conference, accused of taking part in anti-Iran propaganda. Copies of her current work were recently stripped from bookstore shelves in Iran in a countrywide police action.

Her tales, described as "reminiscent in their fantastic blend of realism, myth, and superstition of writers like Rulfo, Garcia Marquez, even Tutuola," frequently take as their setting the small, remote village in southern Iran where she was born. Nahid Mozaffari, editor of Strange Times, My Dear: The International PEN Anthology of Contemporary Iranian Literature, writes that Ravanipour "has been successful in the treatment of the complex subjects of tradition and modernity, juxtaposing elements of both, and exposing them in all their contradictions without idealizing either."