Vahid Davar

Vahid Davar (b. 1981, Shiraz) is the author of two collections of poetry: Safar Safar (Journey Journey, Hekmat-e Kalameh, 2018), which received an honourable mention for the 2019 Ahmad Shamlou Poetry Prize, and Ahd-e Nasim (The Covenant of the Breeze, Hekmat-e Kalameh, 2019). A chapbook titled Something the Colour of Pines on Fire (Matecznik, 2022) features a selection of his poems recreated in English. Several of Davar’s poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in anthologies in English and German. Other poems, often produced in collaboration with Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh, and Hesam Rahmanian, have been exhibited in text-and-image exhibitions at In Situ Gallery in Paris, New York University Abu Dhabi, HeldnRaum in Munich, FACT Liverpool, and NEoN in Dundee.

Davar’s best-known collaborative project with the Haerizadeh brothers and Rahmanian is Philip’s Atlas of the World (2022), a work constructed from a Philip’s atlas, the bilingual text of Ahd-e Nasim, and twenty-five collages that serve as visual counterparts to the poem’s twelve sections. The Atlas was exhibited at the British Museum from October 2022 to February 2024 and was subsequently added to the collections of the British Museum and the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire in Geneva.

Davar holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Liverpool and a PhD in Iranian Studies from the University of St Andrews. His essay “From Continuity to Joining: A Preliminary Sketch for a New Epic” won the University of Oklahoma’s Farzaneh Prize for the best article on Persian literature in 2022. He has lived in Scotland since 2019, where, alongside teaching Persian language and literature part-time and working at the University of St Andrews Library, he has given poetry readings at events including StAnza, Scotland’s International Poetry Festival, and Platform Poetry.

The Scottish Divan (Asemanā, 2027) is Davar’s third collection of poetry in Persian.