Mahasti Afshar (Ziai), a Tehran native, studied drama and classical music production for television at the BBC/London and ORTF/Paris and as a member of National Iranian Radio and Television, served as a technical director at the Shiraz Arts Festival. After earning a Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indo-European Folklore and Mythology (Harvard 1988), she pursued a career as a nonprofit executive at the Getty, Los Angeles Philharmonic, XPRIZE Foundation, and National Geographic Society. At the Getty Conservation Institute, she produced documentaries and museum exhibitions around the world on cultural heritage preservation. Mahasti’s publications include Art and Eternity: Nefertari Wall Paintings; The Ecology of Conservation; and the Landmarks of a New Generation series. Her translations include Shahrokh Meskoob’s Notes by a Traveler; Majid Lashkari’s The Theatre and Cinema of Arby Ovanessian; Saeed Habashi’s Final Sequence, a biography of Esma‘il Kushan; and more recently, Mesbook’s Lament for Siavash, which along with her book in Persian, Jashn-e Honar-e Shiraz 1967-1977, has been published by Mage.
