A Ghost-Haunted Poet: Payam Feili (Iran/Israel) in Conversation with Ron Dahan

Payam Feili is an Iranian writer and poet whose work was banned in his home country. In 2015, following the Hebrew publication of his first prose work, I Will Grow, I Will Bear Fruit... Figs (Vashti–Resling, translated by Orly Noy), he fled Iran and arrived in Israel. The book marked his first publication outside of Iran.

Feili has been waiting for official refugee status in Israel for nearly a decade. His new poetic memoir, Madam Zona (Resling, 2024, translated by Orly Noy), recounts his flight from Tehran as a persecuted gay man and dissident, through his search for asylum in Israel, and into the underbelly of life in South Tel Aviv. At the heart of the book is a tender farewell to Chaya, a friend who took her own life. Woven around this loss are stories of heroin addiction, psychiatric hospitalization, romantic relationships, falling in love, friendships, and also of the harassment he has experienced in Israel.

Feili will speak with writer and poet Ron Dahan about escape, writing, and everything in between.