World Book Day (also known as International Day of the Book) is a yearly event held on April 23 and organized by UNESCO to promote reading, publishing and copyright. It was celebrated for the first time in 1995.
Many countries commemorate the day with ceremonies and festivals. To mark the occasion in Iran, the Department of Culture and Islamic Guidance of Kashan, Isfahan Province, arranged a program bringing together poets and writers at the mausoleum of celebrated poet and painter Sohrab Sepehri (1928-1980) in Mashhad Ardehal, a city in Neyasar, a rural district of Kashan. It was held on April 21 to coincide with the 38th death anniversary of the poet, Tasnim News Agency reported.
Sepehri is greatly revered as one of the foremost Iranian poets and painters of the twentieth century.
Born in the ancient city of Kashan, he spent almost half his life focusing on his personal interests: poetry and painting and excelled in both.
He is considered to be one of the famous Persian poets who wrote ‘new poetry’ (a style of poetry that often has neither meter nor rhyme). To him, new forms were new means to express thoughts and feelings. His poetry is full of humanity and concern for human values. He loved nature and refers to it with added frequency.
Sepehri was also one of Iran’s foremost modernist painters. He worked on numerous paintings applying the same soft and gentle style, which can be found in his poems.
In 1979 he was diagnosed with cancer and moved to England for medical treatment. A year later he passed away in Tehran and was laid to rest in his birthplace.
His poetry has been translated into many languages including English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Swedish, Arabic, Turkish and Russian.
