The recent decades of English Language Teaching (ELT) appear to be particularly concerned with the marginalisation caused by English linguistic, cultural, and academic colonisation and imperialism. Bold footprints of this academic monopoly can be seen in the wide incorporation of abridged or unabridged British and American literary works in foreign language settings. Such literary products are often legitimised as authentic materials authored by native speakers. Inspired by the idea of incorporating non-native literature and translated first language literature into English classes, the authors of this article sought to explore the possibilities of opening spaces for English translations of Persian classic works of literature in English as foreign language classrooms and tracing the language events that unfolded as a result of incorporating such literature. The participants of this two-semester long action research project were non-English major Iranian female university students, majoring in various fields at Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran. The sense of familiarity the students had with such national literary works led to the emergence of language instances lightened by sparks of virtue, vision, life and art.