SIMIN DANESHVAR was born into a provincial, middle-class family in Shiraz in 1921, educated at a missionary school and later at Tehran University. The comparatively relaxed political environment of the forties in Iran led her to choose journalism as her first career, and she began writing fiction at the same time. She subsequently married Jalal Al-e Ahmad, the leading Iranian intellectual and writer, received her doctorate from Tehran University and won a Fulbright scholarship to Stanford University. Upon her return to Iran she became an associate professor of art history at Tehran University. She was an articulate and outspoken lecturer and her promotion was hindered by Savak, the secret police.
After her husband’s untimely death in 1969, Daneshvar assumed a leading role in the Writer’s Association which he had helped found and she provided moral support for intellectuals opposing the Shah’s regime. After the Revolution in 1979, she retired from her University post. Since then, she has kept a low profile whilst continuing to write fiction and remaining deeply committed to her life-long concern with women and their role in Iranian society.