Reza Baraheni is a widely respected poet, novelist and critic. He was imprisoned under the Shah and was banned by and had to seek exile from the Islamic Republic of Iran. His prison poems God's Shadow were published in translation by Indiana UP in 1976 and his essays Crowned Cannibals : Writings On Repression In Iran were also published in the US and widely read at the time. A number of his novels have been translated into French over the past fifteen years and published in Paris by Fayard. The range of his concerns, as well as his constant anti-imperialism and resistance to oppression has not endeared him to any of his country's regimes. He has lived in exile in Toronto for many years and is a former president of PEN Canada.