Marilyn Booth is a British literary scholar, translator, and academic specializing in Persian literature, comparative literature, and translation studies. She has held professorial positions in the United Kingdom, notably as Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of York and previously as Professor of Persian Studies at the University of Manchester. Booth earned her doctoral degree in Persian literature, conducting research on modern Persian novels and literary translation.
Her scholarly work includes contributions to the theory and practice of translation. Key publications authored or edited by Booth are:
- Comparative Literature and the Turn to Translation (2013) – a monograph examining the relationship between comparative literary analysis and translation theory.
- The Art of Literary Translation (2015) – an edited volume that brings together essays on translation practice across different languages and cultures.
- The Blind Owl (2000) – an English translation of Sadeq Hedayat’s seminal Persian novel, widely cited in studies of modern Persian literature.
Booth has also translated works by other Persian authors, contributing to the visibility of Iranian literary productions in the Anglophone world. Her research interests encompass modern Persian fiction, postcolonial literary criticism, and the methodological intersections between translation and comparative literature.
In addition to her academic publications, Booth has been involved in scholarly conferences and editorial boards related to translation studies and Middle Eastern literary scholarship. She is recognized for advancing the study of Persian literature in Western academia and for promoting interdisciplinary approaches to literary translation.
