Parvin E'tesami

Parvin Etesami's house became an Iranian national heritage site on October 19, 2006.

E'tesami had four brothers, her mother died in 1973. Her family moved to Tehran early in her life, and in addition to the formal schooling, she obtained a solid understanding of Arabic and classical Persian literature from her father. At the age of 8 she started writing poems.

Parvin E'tesami (1907 – April 5, 1941) also known as Rakhshandeh Etesami (Persian: رخشنده اعتصامی), and Parvin Etesami (Persian: پروین اعتصامی), was an Iranian 20th-century Persian poet.

In 1938–39 she worked for several months at the library of Danesh-Saraay-e 'Aali, (currently known as Tarbiat Moallem University) of Tehran.

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.

In 1936, E'tesami was awarded by Reza Shah Pahlavi the third-degree Iran Medal of Art and Culture, but she declined.

On July 10, 1934, she was married to a cousin of her father, Fazlollah Etesami, and they moved to the city of Kermanshah. But the marriage only lasted for ten weeks and they separated due to differences of interests and personality and she returned to Tehran.

In 1926, she received an invitation to become the tutor of the queen of the new Pahlavi court, but she refused.

She studied at the Iran Bethel School in Tehran, an American high school for girls where she graduated in 1924. Afterwards, she taught for a while at that school. For her graduation she wrote the poem, A Twig of a Wish (1924) about the struggles facing Iranian women, their lack of opportunities and the need for their education.

Parvin was around seven or eight years old when her poetic ability was revealed. Through her father's encouragement, she versified some literary pieces which were translated from western sources by her father. In 1921 to 1922, some of her earliest known poems were published in the Persian magazine Bahar (Spring). The first edition of her Diwan (book of poetry) consisted of 156 poems and appeared in 1935. The poet and scholar Mohammad Taqi Bahar wrote an introduction to her work. The second edition of her book, edited by her brother Abu'l Fatha Etesami, appeared shortly after her death in 1941. It consisted of 209 different compositions in Mathnawi, Qasida, Ghazal, and Qet'a (another form of Persian poetry), and stanzaic forms. It totaled 5606 distiches.

Parvin E`tesami began writing poetry from a young age; her first published works appeared in the Iranian magazine Baharin the early 1920s, when she was just a teenager. Throughout her life, E`tesami's work was a marriage of the traditional and modern; while her poetic style eschewed the new modernist styles and adhered closely to the forms and structures of classical Persian poetry.

Parvin E'tesami was born in 1907 in Tabriz to parent, Mirza Yussef Etessami Ashtiani (E'tesam-al-Molk). Her paternal grandfather was Mirza Ebrahim Khan Mostawfi Etesam-al-Molk. Her grandfather Mirza Ebrahim Khan Mostawfi Etesam-al-Molk was originally from Ashtiyan, but moved to Tabriz and was appointed financial controller of the province of Azerbaijan by the Qajar administration.