Saeed Nafisi

Saeed Nafisi (also Naficy) (Persian: سعید نفیسی; 8 June 1895 – 13 November 1966) was an Iranian scholar, fiction writer and poet. He was a prolific writer in Persian. Nafisi was born in Tehran, where he conducted numerous research projects on Iranian culture, literature and poetry. He first emerged as a serious thinker when he joined Mohammad-Taqi Bahar, Abbas Eqbal Ashtiani, Gholamreza Rashid-Yasemi and Abdolhossein Teymourtash to found one of the first literary magazines to be published in Iran, called Daneshkade, in 1918. He subsequently published many articles on Iran, Persian literary texts and Sufism and his works have been translated into more than 20 languages worldwide. He died in a Russian hospital in Tehran. Saeed Nafisi's relatives include Moadeb Naficy, the guardian and doctor of the Shah of Iran (Reza Pahlavi); and Moadeb's son Habib Nafisi (Naficy), a senior statesman, founder of Iran's labor laws, U.S.-Iran Attache, and founder of multiple technical universities in Tehran, Hamid Naficy, a noted scholar of Media and Cultural Studies, Siamak Naficy, an anthropologist, as well as acclaimed author, Azar Nafisi, a niece of his. Nafisi taught in Tehran University, Kabul University, Cairo University and San José State University.