Born in Iran in 1946, Shahrnush Parsipur began her career as a fiction writer and producer at Iranian National Television and Radio. She was imprisoned for nearly five years by the Islamist government without being formally charged. Shortly after her release, she published Women Without Men and was arrested and jailed again, this time for her frank and defiant portrayal of women's sexuality. While still banned in Iran, the novel became an underground bestseller there and has been translated into many languages around the world. She is also the author of the prison memoir Kissing the Sword, among many other novels and short stories. Parsipur immigrated to the US in 1994 and lived in exile in Northern California until her death in 2026.