Amirshahi was born on 9 April 1937 in Kermanshah to Amir Amirshahi, a magistrate, and Moloud Khanlary, a political activist. Amirshahi attended primary and part of secondary schools in Tehran Iran and later went to Charters Towers, a private boarding school in Bexhill-on-SeaSussex, England. After obtaining her O- and A-levels in various subject matters she studied physics at Woolwich Polytechnic in London. At the initial stages of the Islamic revolution in Iran she publicly took position against fundamentalism and in favour of a secular democracy. She was an open supporter of Shapour Bakhtiar and Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh. This forced her into exile, where she kept working in her writing and political activism. Some critics have called her novels: Dar hazar & Dar safar as well as her quartet: Maadaraan o Dokhtaraan, all written in exile, "modern classics of Persian literature". Amirshahi has given many lectures at the Palais du Luxembourg and Harvard University, and has written dozens of articles mostly in Persian with occasional contributions to publications such as Newsday and Les Temps Modernes in English and French. One of her notable political stands while in exile has been her instigation of the declaration of the Iranian intellectuals and artists in defence of the British author Salman Rushdie, who had become the object of a notorious manhunt owing to the fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini against him and his book The Satanic Verses. Mahshid Amirshahi was one of the founders of the "Comité de défense de Salman Rushdie en France" and a member of a similar Committee for Taslima Nasreen, the writer who was the target of attacks by fundamentalists in Bangladesh.
Translations
A few of her short stories have been translated into French, German, Czech, Bulgar, Arabic. The following are translated into English:
Peyton Place: Tehran 1972. Translated by Micheal Beard, Heinemann, 1993
"The End of the Passion Play". Translated by Minoo Southgate & Bjorn Robinson Rye, in Modern PersianShort Stories, Three Continents Press, 1980
"Brother’s Future Family". Translated by Micheal Beard
"The Smell of Lemon Peel, the Smell of Fresh Milk". Translated by Heshmat Moayyad, in Stories from Iran, A Chicago Anthology 1921–1991, Mage Publishers, 1991.
"The Blind Alley"; "Enrolment Day"; "Addeh"; "Album"; "Convelesance" ; "Pregnancy"; "Kaandaass"; "The Heat"; "Two Women"; "The Dogs"; "Nausea".
Bibi Khanom’s Starling - collection of short stories, including:
"Bibi Khanom’s Starling" ; "Brother’s Future Family" ; "Ya’ghoub the Subtle" ; "The Russet Cockroach"; "Khoramshar-Tehran"; "Rain and Loneliness" ; "My Grandfather is..." ; "Counting the Chicks Before they are Hatched"; "Party"; "The Smell of Lemon Peel; the Smell of Fresh Milk".
After the Last Day - A collection of short stories, including:
"After the Last Day" ; "Women’s Mourning Ceremony" ; "Agha Soltan from Kermanshah"; "The End of Passion Play" ; "The Christening of Simin’s Baby" ; "The Mist of the Valley, the Dust of the Road"; "Interview" ; "Here and Now".
First Person Singular - collection of short stories, including:
"Labyrinth" ; "Payton Place" ; "Last Name…, First Name…, No. of Birth Certificate…"; "Paykan Place" ; "The Sun Under Grand Dad’s Pelisse".
An Anthology of Short Stories
At Home – A Novel of Iran’s Revolution
Away – A novel about Iranians in Exile
Short Stories - including the four previous collections & "The Tune of the Lonely Bird" and "Maryam’s Messiah"
Abbass Khan’s Wedding – Book One of a quartet called Mothers and Daughters
Dadeh Good Omen – Book Two of Mothers and Daughters
Miscellaneous – An anthology of Views, Reviews and Interviews in Persian, English and French
Shahrbanoo’s Honeymoon – Book Three of Mothers and Daughters
CD – Short Stories Read by the Author
Persian Fables for Our Time
Mehre-Oli'a‘s Reminiscences - Book Four and final volume of Mothers and Daughters
