Shahla Lahiji


Shahla Lahiji is an Iranian writer, publisher, translator, and director of Roshangaran, publishing house on women's issues.

Career and activities

Lahiji completed a degree in sociology at the Open University of London. She established Roshangaran publishing house in 1983, becoming the first female publisher in Iran. As of 2006 Roshangaran published more than 200 titles which are produced by female authors or which are concerned with women's issues. The publishing house received the PEN International prize in the United States and the Pandora prize in the United Kingdom in 2001.
She was one of 19 writers and intellectuals prosecuted for participating in an academic and cultural conference sponsored by the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin on 7–9 April 2000 at which political and social reform in Iran were publicly debated.

Books