Biography
Fevziye Rahgozar Barlas is an Afghan poet, journalist and short story writer born in Balkh in 1955. She grew up in Kabul, and studied at Istanbul University, where she earned a BA in English and Turkish literature in 1977. A writer and journalist in Kabul until she went into exile after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, she joined Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich, Germany. Barlas resumed her studies at University of Washington, graduating in 1996 with an MA in Persian Language and Literature. Her books of Persian poetry include Wonderland, published in 1999, and The Heavens are My Father, from 2001. Several poems from Heavens were translated into English and published in the journal of the Piper Creative Writing Centre at Arizona State University. Barlas dedicates her lyrical poems, which explore hope, despair, beauty and the longing for renewal, to women in Afghanistan.