page_title: Simin Behbahani
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Simin Behbahani / Biography
caption_attribution_description: English: Board of Governors of Association of Patriotic Women [Kānun-e Nesvān-e Vatan'khāh], Tehran, 1922-1932 (1301-1311 AH). From left to right: (sitting) 1. Fakhr Afāgh Pārsā, 2. Molouk Eskandari, 3. Kobrā Chanāni, 4. Mastoureh Afshār, 5. Nosrat Moshiri, 6. Safiyyeh Eskandari, 7. Esmat ol-Molouk Sharifi, (standing) 8. Mehr'angiz Eskandari, 9. Banu Chanāni, 10. Haiedeh Afshār, 11. Abbaseh Pāyvar, 12. Ghodsiyyeh Moshiri. Licensing Source: danahit, flickr.
context_page_description: Simin Behbahani, her surname also appears as Bihbahani was a prominent Iranian contemporary poet, lyricist and activist. She is known for her poems in a ghazal-style of poetic form. She was an icon of modern Persian poetry, Iranian intelligentsia and literati who affectionately refer to her as the lioness of Iran. She was nominated twice for the Nobel Prize in literature, and "received many literary accolades around the world."
context_section_description: Simin Behbahani, whose name at birth was Simin Khalili (Persian: سیمین خلیلی‎) (سيمين خليلی), was the daughter of Abbās Khalili (عباس خلیلی), poet, writer and editor of the Eghdām (Action) newspaper, and Fakhr-e Ozmā Arghun (فخرعظمی ارغون), poet and teacher of the French language. Abbās Khalili (1893–1971) wrote poetry in both Persian and Arabic and translated some 1100 verses of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh into Arabic. Fakhr-e Ozmā Arghun (1898–1966) was one of the progressive women of her time and a member of Kānun-e Nesvān-e Vatan'khāh (Association of Patriotic Women) between 1925 and 1929. When being trained as a midwife, she got accused of writing an article against the school and criticizing it. Due to this false accusation, she was dismissed from the school and that was when she became a member of the communist Tudeh (Masses) Party. In addition to her membership of Hezb-e Democrāt (Democratic Party) and Kānun-e Zanān (Women's Association), she was for a time (1932) Editor of the Āyandeh-ye Iran (Future of Iran) newspaper. She taught French at the secondary schools Nāmus, Dār ol-Mo'allemāt and No'bāvegān in Tehran. 
  Simin Behbahani started writing poetry at twelve and published her first poem at the age of fourteen. She used the "Char Pareh" style of Nima Yooshij and subsequently turned to ghazal. Behbahani contributed to a historic development by adding theatrical subjects and daily events and conversations to poetry using the ghazal style of poetry. She has expanded the range of the traditional Persian verse forms and has produced some of the most significant works of the Persian literature in the 20th century.
  She was President of the Iranian Writers' Association and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999 and 2002. In 2013, she was awarded the Janus Pannonius Grand Prize for Poetry.
  In early March 2010, she could not leave the country due to official prohibitions. As she was about to board a plane to Paris, police detained her and interrogated her "all night long". She was released but without her passport. Her English translator (Farzaneh Milani) expressed surprise at the arrest as detention as Behbahani was then 82 and nearly blind, "we all thought that she was untouchable."
caption: Board of Governors of Association of Patriotic Women, Tehran, 1922
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