Mimi Khalvati

Mimi Khalvati
Khalvati at the British Library in 2011
Born (1944-04-28) 28 April 1944 (age 82)
Tehran, Iran
EducationUniversity of Neuchâtel
SOAS University of London
OccupationPoet
AwardsKing's Gold Medal for Poetry, 2023
Websitewww.mimikhalvati.co.uk

Mimi Khalvati (born 28 April 1944) is an Iranian-born British poet. She is the recipient of the King's Gold Medal for Poetry for 2023, awarded for "her outstanding talent and ability to draw on diverse cultural traditions – Iranian, English and American – to enrich British poetry".

Life and career

She was born in Tehran, Iran, on 28 April 1944. She grew up on the Isle of Wight and was educated in Switzerland at the University of Neuchâtel, and in London at the Drama Centre and the School of Oriental and African Studies.

She then worked as a theatre director in Tehran, translating from English into Persian and devising new plays, as well as co-founding the Theatre in Exile group.

She now lives in London Borough of Hackney, and is a Visiting Lecturer at Goldsmiths College and a director of the London Poetry School.

Khalvati was 47 when her first book was published in 1991. Its title, In White Ink, derives from the work of Hélène Cixous who claimed that women in the past have written "in white ink". Michael Schmidt observes that Khalvati is "formally a most resourceful poet".

She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2009.

Khalvati is the founder of The Poetry School, running poetry workshops and courses in London, and is co-editor of the school's first two anthologies of new writing: Tying the Song and Entering The Tapestry. She is also tutor at the Arvon Foundation, and has taught creative writing at universities and colleges in the United States of America and Britain.

Her most recent collection of poems, Afterwardness, was a 2019 Poetry Book Society Winter Wild Card choice, as well as a Sunday Times Book of the Year. In 2019, she also selected poems for and introduced the Candlestick Press anthology Ten Poems about Childhood.

In January 2024, Khalvati was announced as the 2023 recipient of the King's Gold Medal for Poetry, awarded for excellence in poetry.

Works

Quotes

References

  1. 1 2 Bayley, Sian (25 January 2024). "Mimi Khalvati awarded King's Gold Medal for Poetry". The Bookseller. Retrieved 26 January 2024.
  2. ↑ "British Council Writers Directory".
  3. ↑ Schmidt, Michael, Lives of the Poets, p. 858. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007.
  4. ↑ Schmidt, Lives of the Poets, p. 859.
  5. ↑ "Khalvati, Mimi". Royal Society of Literature. 1 September 2023. Retrieved 3 July 2025.
  6. ↑ "THE POET – Interview with Mimi Khalvati". The POET magazine. 18 August 2023. Retrieved 26 January 2024.
  7. ↑ Khalvati, Mimi, ed. (2019). Ten Poems about Childhood. Candlestick Press. p. 20. ISBN 9781907598746.
  8. ↑ "The King's Gold Medal for Poetry 2023". The Royal Family. 25 January 2024. Retrieved 26 January 2024.
  9. ↑ Tsomokos, D. I. (3 August 2016). "'The Weather Wheel': An interview with Mimi Khalvati".

Further reading