April 4 was the Remembrance Day of Parvin E’tesami. Parvin is known as “The most famous” 20th Century Iranian female poet (1907–1941).
She grew up in an intellectual environment, under supervision of her father Yusuf Etesami who had a literary background. Women’s lives were very restricted during that time in Iran, and poetry was the only art in which a woman could express her thoughts and feelings. In such an atmosphere, Etesami and other early modern women writers in Iran provided a strong feminist claim for women’s rights.
In one of her poems, “A Twig of a Wish”, she asserts women’s importance by pointing out that women are in charge of nurturing and educating all children (both male and female), they should have greater respect and an equal chance for education as men.
She was a member of the Kanoun-e-Banovan and supported the Kashf-e hijab reform against compulsory hijab (veiling).
Her father died in 1938, and she died only three years later of Typhoid fever. She was buried near her father in Qom, near the Masumeh shrine.
Parvin Etesami’s house became an Iranian national heritage site on October 19, 2006.
