2026 Ann Lambton Memorial Lecture
The Modernity of Return: Fereydoun Tavallali (1917–1985) and the Contested Boundaries of Persian Modernist Poetry
With Narguess Farzad
Durham University’s Institute for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies and the British Institute for Persian Studies proudly invite you to another round of the annual series of Ann Lambton Memorial Lectures, delivered by Narguess Farzad.
The event will take place at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge (Paula Browne House Lecture Theatre) and online on Zoom. The venue offers full accessibility, including an induction loop for attendees who require it. The event is free to attend, but booking is necessary via Eventbrite for both in-person and online participation.
Registration for online participation is open at this link. Registration for in-person participation is open and will close on the 5th of November. If you need to register for in-person participation after this date, please contact the office (bipsadmin@thebritishacademy.ac.uk).
The lecture will take place from 5.30 to 6.30pm, and it will be followed by a light reception.
Lecture outline:
Fereydoun Tavallali (1917–1985) occupies a contested position in the history of modern Persian poetry. Celebrated for his wit, lyricism, command of Persian language and stylistic elegance—and often likened to a modern-day Saʿdi—he was also a politically engaged poet, satirist and activist whose early writing was inseparable from his leftist commitments, anti-imperialism and support for Mohammad Mosaddegh. But having been an early advocate and influential practitioner of poetic innovation, following the political repression and personal disillusionment that followed the 1953 coup, Tavallali gradually distanced himself from this experimentation and returned to the classical forms of the ghazal and qasida—a trajectory most suggestively announced in the title of his posthumous collection, Bāzgasht (Return).
This lecture will survey the life and early works of Tavallali and reconsiders his Bāzgasht not simply as an abandonment of modernism or a retreat into literary conservatism, but as an opportunity to examine the categories through which Persian poetic modernity has been narrated—and policed. Placing his changing poetics within the political and literary pressures of mid-twentieth-century Iran, it asks whether formal innovation must necessarily entail the rejection of inherited forms.
About the speaker:
Narguess Farzad is the Senior Lecturer in Persian Studies and Chair of the Department of Languages at SOAS, University of London. She teaches Persian language and literature, with a particular interest in classical and modern poetry, and the challenges of bringing Persian verse to English-speaking audiences.
She is the author of ‘Complete Persian: Grammar of Modern Persian/Farsi‘, and has published widely on the poetry of the Persian-speaking world, as well as the challenges of translation and the enduring appeal of Persian poetry. Narguess has additionally published translations of selected poems of Farzaneh Khojandi in collaboration with the poet Jo Shapcott. She has also contributed introductions to several books of Rumi’s verse in collaboration with Maryam Mafi.
A regular contributor to BBC Radio 3, Radio 4 and the BBC World Service, Narguess has introduced Persian poetry to audiences in museums, literature and book festivals and concert halls in London, at Windsor Castle and at the Venice Biennale. She is one of the founding members and the current director of Persian Language Online, a resource for learning Persian and exploring its culture.
The Ann Lambton Memorial Lectures:
In its third decade, the Ann Lambton Memorial Lectures is a series of annual events jointly organised by BIPS and IMEIS. The events are hosted, in person and/or online, by either BIPS or IMEIS on alternate years. The first lecture was given by Professor Lambton herself in the early 1990s and since then the series has been a key event in the IMEIS and BIPS’s calendars and has featured eminent scholars working on all aspects of the Persianate world.