A powerful and essential tale of female freedom
An internationally acclaimed novel that traces the interwoven destinies of five women – including a wealthy middle-aged housewife, a sex worker and a schoolteacher – as they arrive by different paths to live together in an abundant garden on the outskirts of Tehran.
Drawing on elements of Islamic mysticism and recent Iranian history, the novel depicts women escaping the narrow confines of family and society, and imagines their future living in a world without men.
Originally published in Persian in 1989 and banned in Iran ever since, Women Without Men was longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026.
About the Author
Shahrnush Parsipur was born in Iran in 1946About the Translator
Faridoun Farrokh was born and educated in Iran, where he began a teaching careerAgainst the backdrop of revolution, we follow the lives of five women as they shed their old lives like snakeskin. Parsipur’s layered tales beckon us into a world touched with fable and myth
— The International Booker Prize 2026 judges
‘Some works of fiction move through time, gaining depth with every decade. In Shahrnush Parsipur’s Women Without Men, we follow the lives of five women against the background of revolution and coups as they find their way to a garden, shedding their old lives like snakeskin. Parsipur was imprisoned for daring to write about women’s desires, and now lives in exile in America; Women Without Men has been banned in Iran for over three decades. But her layered tales, glittering in a fresh translation, continue to beckon you into a world that is simultaneously scoured by reality, and touched with fable and myth.’
‘Using the techniques of both the fabulist and the polemicist, Paripur (Prison Memoirs) continues her protest against traditional Persian gender relations in this charming yet powerful novella… The voices of the five separate narrators – delicately connected by plot and circumstance – give us variations on the theme of the mistreatment of women in contemporary Iran.’
