Mahnaz Badihian (pen name: Oba) is an American-Iranian poet. She is most noted for her use of poetry to bridge the gap between western and eastern cultures. She worked as a dentist for many years in Iowa City and often attended the Iowa Writers Workshop. She currently runs a trilingual (Persian, English, Italian) online magazine, Mahmag, as an outlet for new Iranian poets and for contemporary American poets.
Dr. Badihian was born in Isfahan, Iran. Her parents are originally from Najafabad in the province of Isfahan. She did not grow up in one particular city in Iran due to the nature of her father's job.
She had an early talent for writing and remembers when she was in fourth grade her teacher held a special meeting with her mother to tell of Mahnaz's advanced literary ability at only ten years of age. Mahnaz graduated from high school with a math degree from the prestigious girl's school Behesht Aeen. She went on to become valedictorian of her registered nurse degree and continued to receive bachelors of science in nursing education from Pahlavi University. She taught nursing at the University of Kermanshah. However throughout her nursing studies she continued to write and was editor of her nursing school's paper, Mehr. Dr. Badihian left Iran in 1979 with her husband who had received a scholarship to study at Johns Hopkins University. During this leave from Iran she studied to get a Master's in Sociology from Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. then she went on to receive her D.D.S. from University of Iowa Dental School, where she became acquainted with the Iowa Writer's Workshop.
Mahnaz Badihian (Oba) is a poet and translator whose work has been published into several languages worldwide, including Persian, Turkish, Italian, and Malayalam. She attended the Iowa Writer's workshop with a focus on international poetry while practicing as a dentist in Iowa City. Her publications include two volumes of poetry in Persian and a best-selling translation of Pablo Neruda's Book of Questions into Persian. Her most recent publication is a critically acclaimed book of original English language poetry, From Zayandeh Rud to the Mississippi. She has an awarding winning selection of poetry (XIV Premio Letterario Internazionale Trofeo Penna d’Autore, Tornio) translated into Italian by Cristina Contili and Pirooz Ebrahimi. Currently she resides in Northern California where she runs an online multilingual literary magazine, MahMag.org in an effort to bring the poetry of the world together. She presented a paper on erotic literature by Iranian women in the Diaspora at the American Comparative Literature Association's 2008 annual conference. She is an MFA candidate in poetry . A selection of her poems translated by Andrés Alfaro into Spanish will be published in 2010. She is currently working on a novel called "Like a Wedding Dress”.