The latest cultural headlines in the media.

New Chinese translation of Quran unveiled in Tehran
 
Tehran Times: A new Chinese translation of the Holy Quran was unveiled during a ceremony on Sunday in Tehran.

The ceremony was attended by translator Soleman Bai-Ji-Su Deputy Culture Minister Hojjatoleslam Hamid Mohammadi, and several other Iranian officials.

The Chinese translation has been published by Iran’s State Endowment and Charity Affairs Organization (SECAO).

“We are really happy that SECAO establishes a center for Quran translation into other languages and organizes such a weighty task,” Mohammadi said.

He also expressed his thanks to Bai-Ji-Su for his translation of the holy book, saying that he has known Ba-Ji-Su from the first days he came to Iran.
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Fajr Intl. Poetry Festival honors Iranian literati 

Tehran Times: Five Iranian poets will be honored at the opening ceremony of the 6th edition of the Fajr International Poetry Festival on February 7 in the western Iranian city of Kermanshah.

Poets Mohammad-Javad Mohabbat, Ali Shams Alizadeh, Farshid Yusefi, Alireza Daneshpajuh and Abdolreza Radfar were selected as the guests of honor by the policy making council of the festival at the ceremony.

A total of 1451 poets with 50,000 works are participating in the festival, most of whom are from Tehran Province, Parviz Beigi mentioned in a press release.

In a press conference ten days ago, the deputy minister of culture for poetry and literature Yahya Talebian said that the festival organizers plan to honor veteran poets at this edition of the gala.

“Fajr poetry should be free in theme, form and all poets from all over the world can participate at the festival. We have selected those poets who are representatives of their countries,” he added.

He said that the submitted poems are judged without any bias or personal preference for competing at the festival. 

A section of the festival is dedicated to “The Effect of Poetry in the Awakening of the Nations”, he said.

He also announced that the festival will also hold an international conference on Islamic awakening and poetry on February 19.

The festival will be concluded during a ceremony on February 20 in Tehran.

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Syrian literati miss Iran’s congress on Islamic awakening literature

Tehran Times: -- Certain Syrian literati have not been invited to the International Congress on Islamic Awakening Literature, which opened in Tehran on Sunday.

They were bypassed for the event due to a lack of Islamic elements in their works, the organizers said in a press conference on Saturday.

Asked about the absence of Nouri al-Jarrah, Ghada al-Samman and Ali Ahmad Said Asbar (Adunis) at the congress, the congress secretary said, “Not only are they not categorized as Islamic awakening poets but also they are very distant from Islamic views.”

“Thus, despite their place in Arabic poetry, they could not be allowed to participate in the event,” Qasem Shariatmadari said.

The uprisings that hit Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen and Bahrain over the past year are officially referred to as the Islamic awakening in Iran.

About 80 literati from Islamic countries have been invited to the two-day congress, which has been organized by Iran’s World Assembly of Islamic Awakening (WAIA) and the Art Bureau.

The congress was organized to show that the uprisings are Islamic, public, and ‘anti global arrogance’, WAIA Secretary General Ali-Akbar Velayati said during the opening ceremony of the event.

“The congress is also aimed at building a consensus among the ummah to support the divine values as well as to reinforce the resistance against the global arrogance, Zionism and those who back them,” he stated.

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