Simin Beh’bahāni (Persian: سیمین بهبهانی) (born 20 June 1927 in Tehran, Iran) is one of the most prominent figures of the modern Persian literature and one of the most outstanding amongst the contemporary Persian poets. She is Iran’s national poet and an icon of the Iranian intelligentsia and literati who affectionately refer to her as the lioness of Iran. She has been nominated twice for the Nobel Prize in literature, and has “received many literary accolades around the world.”
She is President of The Iranian Writers’ Association and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999 and 2002.
Awards and Honours
Board of Governors of Association of Patriotic Women, Tehran, 1922
- 1998 Human Rights Watch Hellman-Hammet Grant
- 1999 Carl von Ossietzky Medal
- 2006 Norwegian Authors’ Union Freedom of Expression Prize
- 2009 mtvU Poet Laureate
- 2013 Janus Pannonius Poetry Prize
Remarkable people with Iranian roots 