Shahrnush Parsipur
The daughter of an attorney in the Justice Ministry originally from Shiraz, Shahrnush Parsipur was born and raised in Tehran, spent some time in the United States, and graduated from the Faculty of Letters at Tehran University.
Parsipur's 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 Esfahan, no. 9 (June 1972), a special short-story issue which also featured stories by Esma'il Fasih, Hushang Golshiri, Taqi Modarresi, Bahram Sadeqi, and Gholam Hosayn Sa'edi. Her novella Tajrobeh'ha-ye azad (Trial offers, 1970) was followed by the novel Sag va zemestan-e boland (The dog and the long winter), published in 1976. Then came a volume of short stories called avizeh'ha-ye bolur (Crystal pendant earrings, 1977).
As of the late 1980s, Parsipur was receiving 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. Parsipur's second novel was Tuba va ma'na-ye shab (Tuba and the meaning of night, 1989), which Parsipur wrote after spending four years in prison. Right before her incarceration, she had published a translation called Zanan-e roman'nevis (Woman novel-writers, 1984) of a book by Michelle Mercier (?). In 1990 appeared a short novel, again consisting of connected stories, called Zanan-e bedun-e mardan (Women without men), which Parsipur had finished in the late 1970s. The first chapter had appeared in Alefba, no. 5 (1974). The Iranian government banned ÒWomen without menÓ in mid-1990 and put pressure on the author to desist from such writing. Early in 1990, Parsipur finished her fourth novel, a 1,000-page story of a female Don Quixote called 'Aql-e abi'rang (Blue-colored reason), which remained unavailable as of early 1992.
Works: Stories from Iran