Open Wide the Doors: The Prison Memoirs of Mahvash Sabet
In 2018, during her brief respite of freedom between two decade-long prison sentences, Mahvash Sabet asked Bahiyyih Nakhjavani and Azita Mottahedeh to work on her memoirs and make a book that could convey her story in English. They set to work, with Mottahedeh translating the Persian original, word for word, and Nakhjavani attempting to structure a narrative from the more than 750 pages of a harrowing and uplifting testimony which Sabet smuggled out of prison over the years.
“In this discussion, we will explore the decisions involved and the methods followed in the course of creating this book, as well as the distinctive characteristics of Mahvash Sabet's style, tone and intent, which we hope have survived the translation. We will share the ways in which this prison memoir may be different from others and at the same time how it seems to bear witness to the many which might never be written. Above all we will try to share Mahvash’s extraordinary capacity to transform despair into hope, confinement into freedom, and estrangement and isolation into a boundless compassion towards others.”
Bahiyyih Nakhjavani was born in Iran, raised in Uganda, and educated in the UK and the US. She received her preliminary degrees in English Literature from the University of York in the UK, and completed her doctorate at UMass, Amherst, in the US, as well as being awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Liège in Belgium. In addition to teaching literature and creative writing over four decades, she is the author of several novels about Iran and Iranians, including The Saddlebag, Paper, The Woman Who Read Too Much, and Us&Them, published by Bloomsbury and Stanford University Press and translated into a dozen other languages. She has also written essays and articles about the Bahá’í Faith published by George Ronald, UK. Most recently, she has been adapting Persian poetry into English and has translated and edited the memoirs of the prisoner of conscience, Mahvash Sabet, entitled Open Wide The Doors, published by Oneworld in the UK in 2026. Bahiyyih Nakhjavani currently lives in France and narrates audio recordings in English.
Azita Mottahedeh was born in Iran and educated in the UK where she attended the universities of Canterbury and Reading at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. As a translator from Persian to English, she has specialised in works about the Bahá’í Faith for more than thirty years.
Her translations include articles and talks, memoirs and poetry, as well as books of philosophy, history and theology, including 175 Years of Persecution: A History of the Bábís and Bahá’ís of Iran by Dr F. Vahman. Other works she has translated include The Life of Anís Zunúzí by R. Mehrabkhani, The Kingdom of Existence by Dr Ali-Murád Dávúdí, and Volumes I & II of Radio Talks by H. Fatheazam. Several of her translations are in the process of publication. She currently lives in Spain.
This event is made possible by a generous gift from the Taslimi Foundation, establishing a new endowment at Stanford Iranian Studies for the study of the Baha’i Faith in Iran.
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