Women Without Men: the feminist book that Iran’s regime has failed to silence since the 80s

By Hind Elhinnawy, Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University

For more than three decades, Iran tried and failed to silence Women Without Men (Zanan bedun-e Mardan in Persian). Shahrnush Parsipur’s novella exposed the brutality of Iranian patriarchy with rare clarity. It did so long before global audiences recognised that violence.

Published in 1989, the book was banned almost immediately and Parsipur was imprisoned twice for writing openly about women’s sexuality and autonomy – an act of artistic courage the Islamic Republic…

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