Born in Iran in 1972, Shokoofeh Azar was the first Iranian woman to hitchhike the entire length of the Silk Road. She worked as a newspaper editor and journalist in Iran, covering issues relating to women's rights. After several arrests in connection with her work as a journalist, on advice from her family, she fled Iran in 2010, and was granted asylum in Australia, where she has lived as a political refugee since 2011. She is the author of essays, articles, and children's books. Her first novel, The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree, was shortlisted for the Stella Prize for Fiction and the International Booker Prize, and was a finalist for the PEN America Award and the National Book Award for Translated Literature. Her new novel, The Gowkaran Tree in the Middle of Our Kitchen, has already received two awards for a manuscript-in-progress, one from The Australian Council for the Arts and the other from Victoria Creative.
