Haleh Liza Gafori

Haleh Liza Gafori is a New York City-born translator, performance artist, writer, and educator of Persian descent. Her translations of the Persian mystic and sage Rumi have been collected in Gold (2022) and Water (2025), both published by New York Review Books. A 2026 and 2024 MacDowell Fellow, Gafori has created a musical and cross-media performance based on the books and has presented her work, via performances, lectures, and workshops, at such institutions as the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Lincoln Center, Stanford University, the Academy of American Poets, and Sarah Lawrence College. Her work has been published by Columbia University Press, Harvard Review, Paris Review, and elsewhere. She teaches in the MFA program at St. Joseph’s University, and her translations have been incorporated in college curricula across the country. She visited the University of Oklahoma as the 2026 Puterbaugh Fellow.