Solmaz Sharif was born in Istanbul, Turkey, to Iranian parents in the midst of emigrating from Iran to the United States. During her childhood they lived in Texas and Alabama, settling in Los Angeles when she was 11 years old. Aware at a young age of her status as an exile, Sharif found poetry an early outlet and published her first poem at the age of thirteen. Sharif earned her BA from the University of California, Berkeley, and her MFA from New York University.
Sharif’s published collections include Look (2016) and Customs (2022), both with Graywolf Press. Look won the 2017 American Book Award for Poetry, was a finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN Open Book Award, and was chosen for year-end lists by the New York Times, the Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Sharif’s other honors include a PEN Center Literary Award for Poetry, “Discovery”/Boston Review Poetry Prize, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, and the Holmes National Poetry Prize from Princeton University. Her writing has appeared in Harper’s, The Paris Review, Poetry, The Kenyon Review, the New York Times, and other publications. Sharif is currently an Associate Professor of English and the Shirley Shenker Chair of Arts and Humanities at UC Berkeley.
Solmaz Sharif on The Glimpse: S1 E7: Breaking the Silence with Solmaz Sharif
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Photo by Cassidy Araiza.