Sixth Annual Bita Prize for Persian Arts: Mahshid Amirshahy

The Bita Daryabari Endowment in Persian Letters, in the Iranian Studies Program will present the Sixth Annual Bita Prize for Persian Arts on Friday, November 15th, 2013.

The recipient of this year's Bita Prize for Persian Arts is Ms. Mahshid Amirshahy

Guest: Mahshid Amirshahy

Mahshid Amirshahy was a prodigy when she published her first short stories as a teenager—stories at once defiant, deliberate and disciplined. Over an illustrious career that has lasted almost half a century, while the arenas of her contributions to Persian letters have changed--from short fiction to long novels, from journalism to satire, from translations to literary criticism—what has remained constant is her dedication to formal excellence and innovation, artistic freedom and dignity, and the rights of women to live lives free from fetters emanating from tradition, misogyny, dogma or received opinions. In all she wrote and did, she was a feminist long before feminism had become a permanent part of intellectual discourse in Iran. She continues to have an enduring influence on the increasingly rich legacy of women’s fiction and women’s rights in Iran and around the world. It is in recognition of a life dedicated to fiction, to speaking truth to power, and to defending the rights of men and women to live in liberty that she is this year’s winner of the Bita Prize for Persian Arts.