Esmail Khoi
Esmail Khoi, also Esmail Kho'i ( * 1938 in Mashhad, Iran) is an Iranian writer living in exile since 1983.
Life
Khoi was educated in Iran and England. In Iran, he was a lecturer in philosophy during the 1960s and 1970s. He was a founding member of the Writers Association of Iran and stood up against the limitations of the intellectual freedoms under the regime of the Shah. In the face of censorship in Iran this time he developed in his poetry its own symbolism connected with a melodic, deep language.
Khoi was dismissed from his university post, as he increasingly turned to an opposition and revolutionary activism. After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, however, he was even more suppressed by the religious system than before. Since 1980 he has lived in the underground and left Iran in 1983. During the years of exile he described his own life and his struggle for human rights and political freedom. He has appeared publicly for Taslima Nasreen and Salman Rushdie.
Since the 1990s, are some of his poems in English translation before, since 2012 a band in German language.
Awards
- 2010: Coburg Rückert Award worth € 7.500, -.