Sholeh Wolpé is an Iranian-born poet, playwright and literary translator. Her performances, solo or in collaboration with musicians and artists, have been hailed by audiences as mesmerizing.    Named a “2020-2021 Cultural Trailblazer” by the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Sholeh is the recipient of a 2014 PEN Heim, 2013 Midwest Book Award and 2010 Lois Roth Persian Translation prize, as well as artist fellowship and residencies in the U.S., Mexico, Spain, Australia and Switzerland.

Her plays have been finalists and semifinalists at at Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Centenary Stage Women Playwrights, Ojai Playwrights Festival, and Ashland New Plays Festival.

Sholeh ’s literary work includes five collections of poetry, several plays, three books of translations, and three anthologies. Her most recent publications include The Conference of the Birds (W.W. Norton & Co), Cómo escribir una canción de amor (Olifante Ediciones de Poesia, Spain), and Keeping Time with Blue Hyacinths (University of Arkansas Press.) 

Sholeh has performed her literary work with world-renowned musicians at Quincy Jones Presents series on The Broad Stage, Skirball Cultural Center Series, Los Angeles Aloud, The Broad Museum, LA County Museum of Art Ahmanson stage, Singapore Literature Festival, UNSW School of Arts and Media theater, and other venues. Her libretto for a new oratorio, The Conference of the Birds, composed by Fahad Siadat and choreographed by Andre Megerdichian will premiere in Los Angeles in 2022.

Sholeh travels internationally as a performing poet, writer and public speaker. She has also taught at UCLA— where she was the inaugural Writer-in-Residence in 2018— as well as University of Maine’s Stonecoast MFA program in the United States. She has lived in Iran, Trinidad and the UK, and presently lives in Los Angeles with her husband, sociologist Edward Telles. Sholeh is presently a Writer-in-Residence at University of California, Irvine.

Read about her work in Spanish:  Reinventar la infancia Sobre la poesía de Sholeh Wolpé

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Read Sholeh’s work in: Spanish Español , Persian فارسی , Arabic عربى , Hebrew עברי , Macedonian македонски , Galician Galego , Mandarin 普通话 , Japanese 日本人