Shahrnush Parsipur gets first full English translation

Shahrnush Parsipur’s arrival on the 2026 International Booker Prize longlist came through Women Without Men, a Persian novella first published in 1989 and newly issued for English-language readers in March 2026. The Booker Foundation lists the book, translated by Faridoun Farrokh, among this year’s longlisted titles. The renewed attention followed a new Penguin International Writers edition dated March 12, 2026, while The Conversation said the book’s first full English-language translation introduced Parsipur to a wider international readership. ### Which book put Parsipur on the International Booker longlist? Women Without Men is the book named on the 2026 International Booker longlist, according to the Booker Foundation’s book and author pages. The foundation identifies Shahrnush Parsipur as the author and Faridoun Farrokh as the translator. The 2026 longlist, as reproduced by Literary Hub from the Booker announcement, included 13 books translated into English and published in the U.K. or Ireland between May 2025 and April 2026. (thebookerprizes.com) Parsipur’s entry appeared there as Women Without Men, translated from Persian by Faridoun Farrokh. ### Was this really Parsipur’s first full English translation? The Conversation wrote on July 9 that “in March 2026, its first full English-language translation introduced Parsipur to a new international readership,” referring to Women Without Men. (thebookerprizes.com) That phrasing appears to describe the book’s first full English-language translation in the form newly reaching broad anglophone circulation in 2026. (lithub.com) A Feminist Press post from March 3, 2026, said it had published Women Without Men in 2012 and that a “new edition” would be published by Penguin International Writers on March 12, 2026. Taken together, the records show that the 2026 edition was not the first time the work had appeared in English in any form, but it was the edition tied to the International Booker longlist and the one several outlets linked to Parsipur’s wider English-language breakthrough. (theconversation.com) ### Who translated the book, and what do we know about him? Faridoun Farrokh is credited by the Booker Foundation as the translator of Women Without Men. Wasafiri, which published an extract from the book, said Farrokh was born and educated in Iran and later taught English literature and worked on literary translation. Google Books metadata for the 2026 edition also identifies Farrokh as translator and says his research focused on eighteenth-century English literature, contemporary Iranian fiction and literary translation. (feministpress.org) ### Why did this particular book resonate now? The Booker Foundation describes Women Without Men as a story of five women set against recent Iranian history, drawing on Islamic mysticism and depicting women trying to escape family and social constraints. (thebookerprizes.com) The Conversation similarly called it an innovative feminist story set in Iran and said Parsipur wrote women into spaces from which they had often been excluded. (books.google.com) The book’s publication history also shaped the attention around it. The Booker Foundation says the novella was originally published in Persian in 1989 and has been banned in Iran ever since. The Hindu, in a March 2026 interview, said the book had circulated underground for decades and became one of modern Persian literature’s most discussed works. ### Where can readers verify the longlist and edition details? (thebookerprizes.com) The Booker Prize website has both an author page for Shahrnush Parsipur and a dedicated page for Women Without Men showing its 2026 longlist status. Penguin’s March 12, 2026 edition details also appear through bookseller listings tied to the International Writers series. July 9 coverage in The Conversation linked Parsipur’s death at age 80 with the late-career recognition brought by the 2026 edition and longlist. (thebookerprizes.com) As of July 9, 2026, the Booker Foundation pages remain the clearest primary record of the nomination, while the March 2026 edition remains the main English-language publication associated with it. (theconversation.com) (thebookerprizes.com)