Digital Issue #4 is Ready

The electronic version of Issue #4, winter and spring 2014, is ready for you to download for free. It is available on “Free Issues” page alongside with all the previous 3 volumes that we have published. You can of course download and read this issue, and share it with others if you like to; but to reprint or use parts of any article published in this volume somewhere else, you need to ask the author of each article for permission.

We hope that you will enjoy reading it. Please share with us your comments and views.

Click on the picture below to be directed to the download page:

Winter-Spring 2014 Issue Published!

We are glad to announce the publication of Winter-Spring issue of Derafsh-e Mehr. There are limited printed copies available for our readers in Iran, but others (as well as those Iranians who prefer the electronic version) can download the electronic version for free on our weblog. The digital version is not available right now, but it is going to be ready in one or two days. It will be placed on the weblog as soon as it is ready.

This is supposedly the last issue of Derafsh-e Mehr being published at the University of Mazandaran, because the current members of the editorial board are going to be graduated this semester (hopefully!). We are hopeful that other students will continue our way. But our works is not done yet; we will publish our future works on our weblog and our Facebook page. So, if you still like to read about Derafsh-e Mehr, don’t forget to visit us. You can also join our Facebook group if you like, you can share whatever you like regarding literature on our group (find the addresses on “About US” page).

Publication Date: June 1!

Our 4th issue was first meant to be published in winter 2014, but due to some complications we could not meet the deadline, and we had to postpone the publication to spring. Then we tried to get the magazine out during the early days of spring, right after Nowruz vacations in Iran. Again we failed to make that, but we did not lose hope and finally we could prepare winter-spring 2014 issue by the final days of this educational semester. We are happy to announce that the 4th issue is going to be published on June 1st!

Bellow you can see the picture which is going to be published on the front cover. It is a picture of Forugh Farrokhzad, an Iranian poet. We didn’t have access to the original photo, so we were left with the the choice of scanning a washed out, smudged, and out of focus version of it in a book. We had a difficult time retouching it to make it presentable for the cover of the magazine. We are not professional graphic designers, but we did our best, and we hope that fans of Forugh Farrokhzad will like it. You can download it in high resolution by clicking on it. You are free to use it for non commercial purposes.

Forugh Farrokhzad

Participants of the 4th Issue

Here are the names of all of our participants who sent us their literary works for publishing in our 4th issue (in alphabetic order):

Alan Summers
Ameneh Ebrahimpour
Bänoo Zan
Ernesto Santiago
I. Pourtahmasbi
Nasrin Ataee
Ryan Searfoss
S. Martin
Saeed Saffar Heidari
Sholeh Wolpé
Sina Ghasemi
Shloka Shankar
Vahid Koochaki

*The names of the artists whose artworks are going to be used the layout will be announced later.

Happy Nowruz!

March 21^st marks the beginning of the New Year or Nowruz in the Iranian Jalali calendar. Today, More than 300 million people around the world celebrate Nowruz as their New Year ceremony.

Nowruz is celebrated primarily in Greater Iran, Caucasus and Central Asia. Nowruz has also spread in many other regions of the world, including parts of South Asia, Northwestern China, Crimea, Somalia and Yemen. It is also celebrated by some ethnic groups in Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo and the Republic of Macedonia, and by Kurds in Iraq, Turkey, and Syria, as well as Parsis in the Indian subcontinent.

Nowruz is an official holiday in Iran, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Iraqi Kurdistan, Turkey, and etc. Also the Canadian parliament passed a bill to add Nowruz to the national calendar of Canada, on March 30, 2009. It is good to know that Nowruz is officially registered on the UNESCO List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Nowruz has its especial traditions and customs, people usually prepare themselves since a few days before this holiday. The most principal element in this holiday is the Table of Haft–Seen which includes 7 items starting with the sound “S” in the Persian language. There are many other elements including Haji Firuz, Charshanbe Suri, Eidi, Sizdah-Bedar and etc. related to this festival which we suggest you to read this article about Nowruz on Wikipedia to learn more about them: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nowruz

IT IS ALMOST NOWRUZ, SO HAPPY NOWRUZ EVERYBODY!

:-)

Winter Issue Postponed

Hi everybody,

Naturally we should have had published the 3^rd issue of our magazine by now, but unfortunately we will not be able to make it. We have tried our best to meet our deadline, but some of the essays we meant to prepare by February, are not ready yet. Therefore, we need more time to finish some of the essays, and do the layout. That’s why we have decided to combine the 3^rd and the 4^th issues in a single volume that is going to be published right after Noruz vacation in early April.

Now that we had to postpone the publication of our winter issue, the deadline to submit works will be extended; you can send your works up until the end of this Iranian year, or March 20.

We are very sorry for the delay, we know that our participants were expecting to read their works this winter

Haiku for Winter 2014

In each of our past issues we have published at least 4 haiku, which were always accompanied with relevant pictures (this combination of pictures and short poems can also be called haiga). For winter 2014 issue, we wish to publish more, on the condition that we receive enough good haiku. The top 4 will be published as haigas, while the rest depending on their numbers will appear on one or more decorated pages similar to the one you see below.

(continue reading for how to submit yours)