Sholeh Wolpé was born in Iran and has lived in Trinidad, the UK, and the United States.
About her poems, the Poetry Foundation writes, “Wolpé’s concise, unflinching, and often wry free verse explores violence, culture, and gender.” She is the 2018 inaugural author in residence at UCLA and a recipient of the 2014 PEN/Heim, the 2013 Midwest Book Award, and the 2010 Lois Roth Persian Translation prize, among others. Her publications include four collections of poetry, two plays, three books of translations, and three anthologies. Wolpé’s modern translation of The Conference of the Birds (W. W. Norton) by the twelfth-century Iranian mystic poet Attar has been hailed by Reza Aslan as “timeless as the masterpiece itself.” She has taught poetry and literary translation at UCLA and University of Maine’s Stonecoast MFA program. Follow her on Twitter @Sholeh_Wolpe.