Asieh Amini

Asieh Amini (b 1973, Iran) is a poet, journalist, and activist. She studied journalism at Allameh Tabatabaie University in Tehran and earned her master’s in culture studies (equality and diversity) at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

She worked for several newspapers and magazines when she lived in Tehran. Amini’s fight against capital punishment and for women’s rights attracted attention in human rights circles but created hostility towards her as well. She won Human Rights Watch's Hell­mann/Ham­mett Award (2009), the Oxfam Novib/PEN award (2012), and the Ord i Grenseland Prize (2014).

Following a controversial election in 2009, Amini left Iran and came to Norway as an Inter­national Cities of Refuge Network (Icorn) guest writer in Trondheim. She has published three books of poetry in Iran and Norway and is continuing her struggle for freedom of expression in cooperation with Norwegian PEN as a board member (2016–2018). In 2022, the Tronder writers’ society awarded her the right to live at the writer’s residence in Adrianstua in Trondheim for the next five years.