A Fire of Lilies examines the role of Persian literature in the politics of the tumultuous period of Iranian history from 1950 to 2000, illustrating how intellectuals used poetry, plays, novels and short stories to comment on socio-political developments. It analyses how Persian intellectuals dealt with censorship, suppression, imprisonment, exile and even execution for the sake of expression of free speech. The book offers a strong empirical perspective, as Karimi-Hakkak has participated in the events he is writing about.
 

This bilingual edition of recent verse by the celebrated Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami (award-winning director of such films as Close-Up and Taste of Cherry) includes English translations of more than two hundred crystalline, haiku-like poems, together with their Persian originals. The translators, noted Persian literature scholars Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak and Michael Beard, contribute an illuminating introduction to Kiarostami's poetic enterprise, examining its relationship to his unique cinematic corpus and to the traditions of classic and contemporary Persian poetry.

Of interest to enthusiasts of cinema and literature alike, Walking with the Wind—the second volume in Harvard Film Archive's series "Voices and Visions in Film"—sheds light on a contemporary master who transforms simple fragments of reality into evocative narrative landscapes.