Shahrnush Parsipur, the author whose work led her to be imprisoned four times in her native Iran, has died at 80, the Guardian reports.
Parsipur was born in Tehran and educated at the University of Tehran. She made her literary debut in 1969 with the children’s book The Little Red Ball. In 1974, she published her first novel for adults, The Dog and the Long Winter.
Following the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Parsipur was imprisoned for four and a half years, despite never being charged with a crime. After being released, she published the novel Women Without Men, perhaps her best-known work; the book’s portrayal of women’s sexuality led to another prison sentence. In 1994, she moved to the U.S., where she lived in exile for the rest of her life.
She wrote about her experiences in custody in Kissing the Sword: A Prison Memoir, which the Feminist Press published in an English translation by Sara Khalili in 2013. A critic for Kirkus wrote of the memoir, “Stark and haunting, this book stands as a powerful testament to not only the devastations of an era, but to the integrity and courage of an extraordinary woman.”
On Encyclopædia Iranica website, Fatemeh Shams paid tribute to Parsipur, writing, “To read Parsipur is to encounter a writer who never mistook survival for submission. She wrote through censorship, incarceration, exile, illness, poverty, and the relentless confiscation of her voice. Her subject was nothing less than the struggle to become human in a world determined to keep women symbolic rather than free.”
And Jeanne Thornton, editorial director of the Feminist Press, said in a news release, “Through her novels and stories, her memoirs, her work as a translator, and her literary activism, Shahrnush Parsipur lived a life wholly dedicated to cultivating the places where women’s experiences meet the mystical imagination and the political world. We’re honored she trusted us with bringing her writing into English, and we’re grateful she was able to see a whole new readership begin to discover the worlds she created.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
