About us

Jane Lewisohn lived in Iran for six years during the 1970s and graduated from Pahalavi University in Shiraz. She has been involved in the research and promotion of various aspects of Persian studies for the last three decades. Since 2005 she has directed the Golha Project under the auspices of the British Library, London, and the Music Department of SOAS, University of London. She has archived and digitalized the whole archive of the Golha radio programs broadcast on Iranian Radio from 1956 through 1979. The award-winning Golha Project launched in 2012 has made the entire Golha archive and all its related research freely available over the Internet at http://www.golha.co.uk In 2015 she began working on the Golistan Project to create a world resource for Persian performing arts.

Leonard Lewsiohn (1953-2018) Was Senior Lecturer in classical Persian and Sufi Literature at Exeter University, has published books and articles on the major Persian poets, including Rumi, Hafiz, ‘Attar, Mahmud Shabastari, Nasir-i Khusraw, and Ansari; written articles on such minor Persian poets as Nizari Quhistani, Awhadi Maragha’I, and Mir Husayni Haravi; and composed studies on well-known Islamic philosophers and mystics, such as Sa’in al-Din Turkah, Isfahani, and Shahrastani. Recently he published several studies comparing Persian poetry and Sufism with Western and Eastern poetry and love mysticism, including in the studies such poets as Shelley, Blake, and Tagore. He is also the editor of the Mawlana Rumi Review, an annual academic review dedicated to the life and works of Mawlana Jalal a Din Rumi, now in its tenth year.

Formerly Managing Editor of W. H. Freeman and Company/Worth Publishers/Macmillan Higher Education for over 22 years and Treasurer of the United Nations International School Parents’ Association for 2 years, is currently a freelance editor. He recently edited a review of Jafar Panahi’s Taxi for the Tehran Bureau.

Mehdi Parhizkar, MBA, is President of Tooth Mobile, a nonprofit organization providing free comprehensive dental care and preventative oral hygiene to children from low-income families on site at their schools. He holds monthly lectures and discussion groups on Sufism and Persian philosophy in San Jose and Laguna Niguel, California.