TEHRAN -- The first edition of the two-day international contemporary Persian literature congress opens today at Ferdowsi Hall of the University of Tehran.

Qeisar Aminpur was scheduled to give one of the keynote lectures of the event. After his recent death, it was decided to hold the congress in commemoration of the poet. Several papers are to be presented on Aminpur’s poetic style, said Abbasali Vafaii, the secretary of the congress.
Vafaii is also the director of the Islamic Culture and Relations Organization (ICRO) Persian Literature and Language Development Department.
Iran’s contemporary literature will be reviewed during the event, which will focus on Sacred Defense literature, which is about the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, and works written since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Vafaii added.
Iranian and foreign scholars will be presenting 35 papers during the event, he said.
The abstracts of 50 selected papers submitted to the secretariat of the congress have been published in a book which will be given to participants during the gathering, he stated.
Scholars from Russia, India, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Egypt will be participating in the event.
The foreign guests will also be invited to visit Iran’s National Library and Archives and other cultural and historical sites in Tehran, Vafaii said.
The congress is being cosponsored by the ICRO Persian Literature and Language Development Department and the Faculty of Literature and Humanities of the University of Tehran