Reza Shirmarz

He has been translating the complete works of Aristotle into Persian language of which the first volume (The Poetics) was published in 2017. The book was sold out in a short time and was republished in 2020. Reza Shirmarz announced in one of his recent interviews that he is translating the eight books of Aristotle into Persian at the moment along with other projects he is carrying out. He said that Rhetoric is going to be published soon by major Iranian publishing company called Ghoghnoos. In addition to his research and translation activities, Shirmarz wrote several plays such as Immigrants, The Corners of Death, The Pipe, Tsunami, etc. in English while living in Greece. His play Immigrants was translated into Greece a couple of years ago.

Reza Shirmarz wrote several plays of which two -Cinnamon Stars and Crystal Vines- were celebrated on a national scale in Fajr International Theater Festival and Iran's National Playwriting Contest. He also translated tens of plays and books by famous world dramatists and authors, including Aristophanes (11 plays), Menanderus (1 play), Plautus (20 plays), Terentius (2 plays), George Bernard Shaw (7 plays), Edward Bond (1 play), Somerset Maugham (5 plays), Terence Rattigan (2 plays), Clifford Odets (2 plays), Iakovos Kambanellis (6 plays), John Mortimer (5 plays), Arthur Watkyns & J.A. Ferguson, Edward Albee, Marjorie Bolton, Jean Paul Sartre, Jean Anouilh, etc. He is mostly specialised in theater and philosophy. His last book on Robert Wilson, well-known American theater director, was published in 2015 by Ghatreh publishing company in Tehran. One of his recent translations from Greek into Persian was Aristotle's Poetics which was published in 2018 in Tehran by a major publishing company called Ghoghnoos. Although some of his works were already published at the time of President Mohammad Khatami, they have been constantly censored and banned by the Iranian official authorities since the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad, but he never gave up creating new pieces of art and translating drama and philosophy into Persian. More than six of his works, such as Cinnamon Stars, Crystal Vines, Deep Blue Sea, Yellow Snow Falls, etc. are officially announced as forbidden to be published and distributed. One of his translations is The Big knife by Clifford Odets which has been prohibited for more than a decade.

Reza Shirmarz moved to Greece in 2010 to do research on ancient Greek culture and civilization, learn Greek language while studying at the university of Athens and translate Greek theatrical and philosophical works into Persian directly from Greek. Six plays of Iakovos Kambanellis were the first series of theatrical works he translated directly from Greek language into Persian. He received a scholarship from the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the effort and assistance of Konstantinos Passalis, the cultural deputy of Greek embassy in Iran in 2009.

Reza Shirmarz translated two essays on African rituals and their theatrical aspects which were published as parts of a book called Drama and Religion published in Fajr International Theater Festival by Iran's Performing arts center in 2007. He has been also active in various Iranian radio channels as writer, translator and narrator for more than a decade. Shirmarz has adapted and translated more than 100 dramatic works to be performed in radio and has been active as a theater critic as well for several years. Despite all his artistic efforts in Iranian mainstream theater and media, he and his colleagues were deprived of their activities at the time of Mahmood Ahmadinezhad, the extremely fundamentalist Iranian president who was elected in year 2009. Shirmarz was also active in the administrative part of Fajr International Theater Festival for three years at the time of reformist Iranian president Mohammad Khatami from 2001 to 2004. He has worked with several literary or theatrical magazines (Kelk, Theater, Payab, etc.), journals (The Linguist in London), newspapers (Hamshahri, Farhikhtegan, Shargh, Jame'e, etc.), news agencies (IBNA, ISNA, etc.) for almost two decades since the outset of his career. He has also been giving speeches and lectures as a playwright, theater director, researcher, theorist and critic in different performing arts centers in Iran, mostly in Tehran. Reza Shirmarz became an honorary member of Vanagahan Theater Group in Iran and conducted a number of voice and speech workshops for the actors of the group. He also performed some vocal parts of some of the performances of the group in three languages a couple of years ago.