Mahvash Sabet is an award-winning poet and teacher from Iran. In 2017, she was chosen as the winner of the PEN Pinter Prize for a Writer of Courage by fellow poet Michael Longley. She is an Honorary Member of English PEN.
Sabet began writing poetry in prison, and a collection of her prison poems was translated into English and published in 2013. Two more volumes of poems رها (A Tale of Love – More Prison Poems) and حکایت عاشقی (Love Story) were published in 2019 and 2021.
Having already spent several long years in detention between 2008 and 2017 due to her religious beliefs as a member of Iran’s persecuted Baha’i minority, Mahvash was once again arrested in July 2022 on unfounded charges of espionage. She was sentenced to ten years in prison in November 2022 after the judge reprimanded her for ‘not learning her lesson’ and has reportedly been subjected to torture.
In December 2024, Sabet was temporarily released for urgent medical treatment, including open-heart surgery.
PEN continues to call for her unconditional release.
'I did not decide to write poetry: it decided me. Nor did I even choose what to write; the poems did the choosing. They flowed out of me, like a fountain gushing up from inside, bubbling between my lips.'
Mahvash Sabet – PEN TransmissionsBackground
Mahvash Sabet is an award-winning poet and teacher from Iran, who in 2017 was named the winner of the PEN Pinter Prize for a Writer of Courage by fellow poet Michael Longley.
Sabet was among seven Baha’i leaders known as the Yaran-i-Iran (‘Friends of Iran’) who were detained in 2008 for their faith and activities related to running the affairs of the Bahá’í community in Iran. The group was held for twenty months without charge. Their trial finally began on 12 January 2010, on false charges including espionage, propaganda against the Islamic Republic, and acting against the security of the country. Five months later, on 14 June 2010, each of the defendants was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment. These sentences were later reduced to ten years each.
Mahvash Sabet began writing poetry in prison and a collection of her work Prison Poems, adapted from Persian by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani, was published in the UK in April 2013 by George Ronald Publisher. As Nakhjavani described in the introduction to the collection, ‘her poems allowed her to speak when words were denied, to talk when no one was listening to her.’
On 18 September 2017, shortly before being named the Writer of Courage, Sabet was the first of the group to be released from prison, having served almost a decade in detention. She sent the following message to the PEN community following her release:
“Ten years of my life have just passed behind bars, and as I re-enter the world, I find myself given this incredible award. It is a wonder to me and a mystery. Coming back into the light after these ten long years in darkness has not been easy. The changes I see all round me are truly astonishing. The pace of life is overwhelming. But the hardest thing for me is to know that even though I am walking free, many other friends and colleagues still remain behind bars.
So in the midst of my wonder, I am filled with anguish. I am torn between joy and sorrow at this moment. And in thanking you for this great honour, I would like to speak on behalf of all whose rights and freedoms have been deprived.
This is what PEN did for me, by championing my cause. This is what you are doing for so many poets and writers in the world. When I suffered in prison, your compassion sustained me; all through those dark years, your sincere support encouraged me. You are an example of advocacy to people of goodwill everywhere, including journalists and activists among my own compatriots, and even certain clerics in Iran.”
Following her release from prison, Mahvash Sabet continued writing – preparing two further collections of poetry and working on her prison memoirs. English PEN is deeply honoured to have published an excerpt of Sabet’s memoirs, translated by Azita Mottahedeh, and edited and adapted by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani, on our online magazine PEN Transmissions.
In July 2022, less than five years after her release from prison, Mahvash Sabet was once again arrested by the Iranian authorities and returned to the notorious Evin Prison where she had previously been imprisoned. In November 2022, she was sentenced to a further ten years in prison.
Following her rearrest, Sabet was subject to torture during her interrogation, resulting in both of her kneecaps being broken, and has been denied adequate medical care.
In December 2024, Mahvash was temporarily released for urgent medical treatment, including open-heart surgery. PEN continues to call for her unconditional release.
