Dr Behnaz Amani

I‘m from the Middle East, the cradle of civilisation, yet ironically the place that each day reminds me of this part of Dante‘s Inferno Canto iii "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here". As a woman, a poet and a literary scholar, I can paint the 21st-century human condition and his/her hopes, endeavours, devastations, and beliefs with my words; my audience can see each like an Alice who dares to enter the rabbit hole. I am a former political prisoner of Iran’s recent revolt Woman, Life, Freedom who spent almost two months in Gharchak Women‘s Prison and only bailed out due to her uterus cancer. I used to teach English Literature at the university but after my imprisonment, they expelled me from university and prohibited me from publishing anything academically or non-academically. Thanks to dear Mr. Charles Bernstein and other American poets who ran a petition for me, my voice was heard first by PEN America and then by PEN Germany.