Shahrnush Parsipur

Shahrnush Parsipur (; 17 February 1946 – 3 July 2026) was an Iranian-born writer and translator.

Early life and career Shahrnush Parsipur was born on 17 February 1946; she was born and raised in Tehran, Iran. Parsipur received her B.A. degree in 1973 in sociology from Tehran University,

Her first book was Tupak-e Qermez (The Little Red Ball – 1969), a story for young people. Her first short stories were published in the late 1960s. One early story appeared in Jong-e Isfahan, no. 9 (June 1972), a special short-story issue that also featured stories by Esma'il Fasih, Houshang Golshiri, Taqi Modarresi, Bahram Sadeghi, and Gholam Hossein Saedi. Her novella Tajrobeha-ye Azad (Trial Offers – 1970) was followed by the novel Sag va Zemestan-e Boland (The Dog and the Long Winter), published in 1976. In 1977, she published a volume of short stories called Avizeh'ha-ye Bolur (Crystal Pendant Earrings).

She was imprisoned four times – one under the Shah regime and three times during the Islamic Republic of Iran. She did not see herself as a political activist.

As of the late 1980s, Parsipur received considerable attention in Tehran literary circles, with the publication of several of her stories and several notices and a lengthy interview with her in Donya-ye Sokhan magazine. Her second novel was Touba va ma'na-ye Shab (Touba and the Meaning of Night – 1989), which Parsipur wrote after spending four years and seven months in prison.

Early in 1990, Parsipur finished her fourth novel, a 450-page story of a female Don Quixote called Aql-e abirang (Blue-colored Logos), which remained unavailable as of early 1992.

In 1994 she went to the United States and wrote Prison Memoir, a 450-page account of four times that she was in different prisons. In 1996 she wrote her fifth novel Shiva, a science fiction work of 900 pages. In 1999 she published her sixth novel, Majaraha-ye Sadeh va Kuchak-e Ruh-e Deraxt (The Plain and Small Adventures of the Spirit of the Tree), in 300 pages. In 2002, she published her seventh novel, Bar Bal-e Bad Neshastan (On the Wings of Wind), in 700 pages.

From 2006, she made various programs for Radio Zamaneh based in Amsterdam.

Personal life and death As of 2026, she resided in exile in Richmond in Northern California and considered herself an American as well as an Iranian.

Awards In 1994 Parsipur was the recipient of a Hellman-Hammett grant, awarded to writers who are in financial need as a result of political persecution, from Human Rights Watch's Free Expression Project. She was honored with the Fiction Award at the Encyclopædia Iranica Gala in Miami in 2003. She was the first recipient of the International Writers Project Fellowship from the Program in Creative Writing and the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University for 2003 to 2004. She received an honorary doctorate from Brown University in 2010.

In December 2024, Shahrnush Parsipur was included on the BBC's 100 Women list.

Views Parsipur believed that the theocratic laws in Iran must be changed to make Iran free. However, she opposed the 2026 attack by the USA and Israel on Iran, saying that they cannot bring liberty to Iran and instead cause suffering and ruin, which she never forgave them for. In her view, the Iranians themselves must achieve change in the system of their own country without interference by foreign powers.

The book has also been translated into French (Femmes sans hommes), Polish (Kobiety bez mężczyzn), Romanian (Femei fără bărbați), Portuguese (Mulheres Sem Homens), Spanish (Mujeres sin hombres) and Estonian (Meesteta naised).

Tuba and the Meaning of Night Tuba va Ma'na-ye Shab in Persian

USA - Touba and the Meaning of Night) translated into English by Kamran Talattof, 2005. Poland - Tuba i znaczenie nocy translated into Polish by Anna Krasnowolska, 2012.

The book is also translated into German, Italian, and Swedish.