Simin Dāneshvar was an Iranian academic, novelist, fiction writer and translator, largely regarded as the first major Iranian woman novelist. Daneshvar had a number of firsts to her credit. In 1948, her collection of Persian short stories was the first by an Iranian woman to be published. The first novel by an Iranian woman was her Savushun ("Mourners of Siyâvash", also known as A Persian Requiem, 1966), which went on to become a bestseller. Daneshvar's Playhouse, a collection of five stories and two autobiographical pieces, is the first volume of translated stories by an Iranian woman author. Being the wife of the famous iran writer Jalal al-Ahmad she had a profound influence on his writing, she wrote the book "the Dawn of Jalal" in memory of her husband. Simin was also a very good translator, of her translations we can name "The Cherry Orchard" by Anton Chekhov and "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Her last book is currently lost and was supposed to be the last book of her trilogy which started with "the lost island". Al-Ahmad and Daneshvar never had a child.
Also known as
Translator, Writer, Novelist, University Teacher
