Using the book El viaje a Persia desde la Antigüedad hasta nuestros días (Travel to Persia from Antiquity to Our Day) as a reference, the authors will offer an evening in a caravanserai, the meeting point for travelers in ancient times, to undertake a dialogue on their experiences as travelers in Iran, evoking the itineraries of the great travelers to the Orient. These crossed glances of two experts on Persian culture will also attempt to clear up several myths about the exotic and distant, showing the transformative dimension of travel by experiencing “otherness.” In the words of Persian mystic Fariduddin ’Attar, “We have taken a long journey only to return to ourselves.”

Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.  

Alfredo Gutiérrez-Kavanagh

Holder of a degree in Persian Language and Literature from the Dehkhoda Institute in Tehran, Mr. Gutiérrez-Kavanagh has worked as a translator and interpreter of the Persian language (Farsi). He holds a European doctorate from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and the Accademia di Venezia and is a lawyer who specializes in International Law, with an MBA form Spain’s Instituto de Empresa.

In the year of 2000, he received the Special Prize for university degree achievement from the School of Fine Arts in Madrid. He completed his graduate studies at Alame Tabetabe’i University in Tehran and has a diploma in Modern Literature Translation from Cambridge University. He is a university expert on Indo-European Languages accredited by the University of Salamanca.

He is a specialist in Comparative Law with a lengthy career as an advisor and conference speaker on Islamic legal and political systems, particularly on international relations between the European Union and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

An author of many publications containing studies on the Middle East and Islamic iconographics, his most recent works include: Irán por Dentro. La Otra historia (Iran Inside: The Other History), published by José J. de Olañeta in 2010 and El Viaje a Persia (Journey to Persia, 2012), a work which analyzes the relations between Europe and Iran throughout history.

At present, he is a writer and a professor of International Relations (Middle East) at the Universidad Pontificia de Comillas (Madrid), as well as the President of the Spanish Society of Iranology (SEI).

Ana M. Briongo

Holder of a degree in Physical Sciences and a writer, Ms. Briongos is a tireless traveler. She was a student of Literature at the University of Tehran and, for a period of nearly ten years, she worked in Iran and Afghanistan as a consultant and interpreter. Now settled in Barcelona, she worked from 1982 to 1992 at Interway, an international student exchange organization. She is now dedicated to writing and giving speeches and conferences. In recent years, she has spent long time periods in India to prepare her book ¡Esto es Calcuta! (This is Calcutta!).

A professor on leave, she is very knowledgeable about the Islamic world and is a declared lover of adobe architecture, Persian poetry, bazaars, deserts, the mountains of the Hindu Kush, the steppes of Central Asia and, above all, the people who live in these places.