Translated by Fatemeh Ekhtesari
Edited by Samuel Tongue
Written in exile, The Last Kiss is a bilingual poetry collection in Farsi and English by one of Iran’s most loved contemporary poets. Persecuted by the regime for his uncompromising voice, Mehdi Mousavi was forced to flee his country. These poems speak of rebellion, longing, and the struggle to find a new home in exile.
The Last Kiss is a bilingual collection of poetry in Farsi and English by Mehdi Mousavi, translated by Fatemeh Ekhtesari and edited by Samuel Tongue.
The poems draw on Mousavi’s own experience of persecution and exile, but they speak more widely to themes of loss, belonging, and resilience. Written in the tradition of the post-modern ghazal, they combine lyrical intensity with a sharp, questioning edge. At once personal and political, the collection reflects the struggle of leaving behind loved ones, the dislocation of starting again in an unfamiliar country, and the search for community in the face of solitude.
Mousavi’s voice has long been recognised as uncompromising. His work was part of the Green Movement in Iran, where poetry played a role in inspiring dissent and unsettling those in power. For his writing he was imprisoned, tortured, and sentenced to nine and a half years in prison and 99 lashes, before being forced to flee.
Now living in Norway, far from family and the country he still longs for, Mousavi continues to write with the same urgency and honesty that made him one of Iran’s most important contemporary poets. The Last Kiss offers English-speaking readers the chance to encounter this voice directly, in poems that move between melancholy and defiance, intimacy and exile.