Karim Emami, a prominent Iranian translator and editor who for more than 50 years devoted his life to Persian literature and art, died July 9 at his home in Tehran. He was 75.
The cause of death was leukemia, his family said.
Mr. Emami was best known for translations from English into Persian and of contemporary Persian poetry into English. As a critic, he contributed to a wide range of fields including film, art and photography. He also became an authority on the Persian language and was known for his work on dictionaries.
His translations into Persian included "The Great Gatsby," John Osborne's play "Look Back in Anger" and Denis Wright's playful account of the encounter between Iran and Britain in the 19th century, "The Persians Among the English."
In the 1960s, Mr. Emami became a leader in translating contemporary Persian poetry into English. Some of his translations were published in the English-language daily Kayhan International. His translation of "Another Birth," by Forough Farrokhzad, an outspoken poet and film director, is regarded as a classic. He also translated the elusive poetry of Sohrab Sepehri. Both poets died young and were among his friends.
Mr. Emami also took interest in old poetry and produced a new translation of the quatrains of Omar Khayyam. A collection of 72 quatrains, "The Wine of Nishapur," was published in 1989.
Mr. Emami was born in 1930 in Calcutta, India, a frequent destination of his father, a tea merchant. He returned to the southern city of Shiraz in Iran when he was 2 and learned his first English words from his father, who was familiar with the language.
He studied English literature at Tehran University and became a journalist in the early 1950s. His work in journalism coincided with political upheaval in Iran, the nationalization of oil by Iran's leader, Mohammed Mossadegh, and later the 1953 coup, backed by the Central Intelligence Agency, that overthrew the government.
He went to the United States in 1953 for graduate work in English literature at the University of Minnesota. In 1967, he abandoned journalism to become editor in chief at Franklin Books, where he was instrumental in the publication of quality books and training younger writers and editors. He later founded a publishing house, Soroush Press, and, with his wife, Goli, also a translator, started the Zamineh bookstore in Tehran, a meeting place for book lovers.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by two daughters and four brothers.
