Transnational Series: Diana Arterian and Marina Omar

Join the for an in-store event with translators Diana Arterian and Marina Omar to discuss and honor the release of Smoke Drifts by Nadia Anjuman.

Afghan poet Nadia Anjuman (1980-2005) drew on the lineage of Persian and Sufi writing and her life under Taliban rule, attending to love, oppression, myth, and devotion through lyrics that both embrace and resist tradition.

Anjuman grew up in Herat, Afghanistan, a city known for centuries for its poetry. While the Taliban was in power, Anjuman met with other women in what appeared to be a needlepoint school, one of the few sanctioned pastimes for women, to secretly discuss literature and poetry. After the fall of the Taliban, Anjuman was finally able to attend university. She wrote and published a celebrated volume of poetry and was set to publish another before her early death due to domestic violence. Selections from both of Anjuman’s collections are presented here for the first time in English.

Diana Arterian holds a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California and is the author of the poetry collections Agrippina the Younger, which received the Poetry Society of America’s William Carlos Williams Award, and Playing Monster :: Seiche. Her work has been recognized with fellowships from the Banff Centre, Caldera, Millay Arts, Vermont Studio Center, and Yaddo. A poetry editor at Noemi Press, she writes “The Annotated Nightstand” column at Lit Hub and lives in Los Angeles.

Marina Omar moved to the United States in 2001 from Afghanistan, where she experienced the Taliban's brutal ban on Afghan women's education. Once in the US, Marina pursued her education and received her PhD from the University of Virginia in Political Science in 2016. She published an article on the Afghan constitutional selection in British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies in 2022. She has also co-translated a poetry collection by Nadia Anjuman, a female poet who lived in Afghanistan around the same time as her.

The Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith

The Transnational Series focuses on stories of migration, the intersection of politics and literature, and works in translation and is supported by the independent bookstore Brookline Booksmith. Subscribe to the Transnational Series newsletter for information on upcoming events, book recommendations, and more.

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Livestream!

Barring technical difficulty, this event will be livestreamed to our store YouTube channel.

Event Accesibility

This event will take place at street level. If possible, the event will be livestreamed to YouTube. ASL interpretation may be provided (based on the availability of interpreters) but must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance of the event. Seats are limited. Please email [email protected] as soon as possible if you require ASL interpretation, guaranteed seating, or other accommodations. We will do our best to serve your needs!

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Please note that any Brookline Booksmith in-person event may be canceled by the bookstore, publisher, or author based on concerns about health and safety around the time of the event. Wherever possible, any in-person appearance canceled due to COVID will be moved to the Brookline Booksmith Zoom as a webinar at the same date and time, and all tickets and registrations will be transferred to the online event. Book signing details may change. Refunds may be requested in the case of a virtual pivot or event cancelation.

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