---
title: Mahvash Sabet Wrote Her Prison Memoir From a Solitary Cell
description: Imprisoned Iranian Baha'i poet Mahvash Sabet, who shared the 2017 PEN Pinter Prize, publishes Open Wide the Doors, a memoir of her years in Iran's prisons.
author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
updated: 2026-08-18T15:15:01.697Z
canonical: https://richbooksmagazine.com/article/mahvash-sabet-open-wide-the-doors-prison-memoir
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/open-wide-the-doors-mahvash-sabet-172543.webp
categories: Memoir & Biography
content_type: Profile
region: Iran
publication: Rich Books
schema_type: Article
---

In March 2008, agents of the Islamic Republic's Intelligence Ministry called Mahvash Sabet in for questioning. She told her husband she would be home by evening. She did not return for ten years.

The stated reason was a dead man said to have been buried in the wrong cemetery. The real accusation was heresy and espionage, and Sabet was threatened with death, all because of her faith. She is a Baha'i, a member of the religious minority the Iranian state has persecuted for decades, as well as a poet and a teacher.

## The Memoir She Wrote in Solitary

Her book, *Open Wide the Doors: A Memoir of Faith, Hope and Freedom in Iran*, covers the first ten months of that imprisonment, most of it spent alone in a cell. It is her first book of prose, after years of writing poetry inside Iran's prisons.

Sabet writes about far more than herself. She turns to the other women she met inside, the thieves and the prostitutes, and even the guards. The women encouraged one another to write, and Sabet gives their voices room on the page alongside her own.

> "This book by Mahvash Sabet, a Baha'i prisoner of conscience in Iran, is a testament to the power of truth, to the fact that in our darkest times, times of brutality and indifference, we can still preserve our dignity, our humanity, and our belief in hope."
> — Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran

## Recognized Abroad Through Her Poems

Readers outside Iran first came to Sabet through her poetry. Her collection *Prison Poems* was translated and published in 2013, and she has written two further books in Persian, *Raha* (More Prison Poems) and *Hekaya-e Asheghi* (Love Story). In 2017 the poet Michael Longley, that year's PEN Pinter Prize winner, named her [International Writer of Courage](https://www.pen-international.org/our-campaigns/world-poetry-day-2025-mahvash-sabet), and the two shared the prize.

## Now Serving a Second Decade

Sabet completed that first ten-year term and was freed, only to be sentenced again in 2022 to another decade, on charges that once more included espionage, after a trial her supporters call unjust. By late 2024 she had spent more than thirteen years in prison for her beliefs.

Her health broke down inside. In December 2024, at 71 and recovering from major heart surgery, she was [released temporarily on medical grounds](https://www.bic.org/news/mahvash-sabet-recovering-heart-surgery-irans-government-must-let-her-do-so-peace-never-returning-her-prison). She remains at risk of being sent back.

*Open Wide the Doors* is published by Oneworld Publications, translated from the Persian by A. Mottahedeh and B. Nakhjavani. It goes on sale in the United States on August 18, 2026, in paperback at $22.95 and as an ebook at $12.99, distributed by Simon & Schuster.

## FAQ

**Q: Who is Mahvash Sabet?**
Mahvash Sabet is an Iranian poet and teacher and a member of the country's Baha'i minority. She has been imprisoned for years for her faith and is known abroad for her poetry and for sharing the PEN Pinter Prize in 2017.

**Q: Is Mahvash Sabet still in prison?**
She is serving a ten-year sentence handed down in 2022. In December 2024 she was released temporarily on medical grounds while recovering from heart surgery, but she remains at risk of being returned to prison.

**Q: What is Open Wide the Doors about?**
It is Sabet's memoir of the first ten months of her imprisonment, much of it in solitary confinement, and of the other women she met inside. It is her first book of prose.

**Q: What was Sabet's 2017 PEN Pinter Prize honour?**
In 2017 she was named International Writer of Courage by Michael Longley, that year's PEN Pinter Prize winner, and the two shared the award.