Marina Nemat was born in 1965 in Tehran, Iran. After the Islamic Revolution of 1979, she was arrested at the age of 16 and spent more than two years in Evin, a political prison in Tehran, where she was tortured and came very close to execution. She came to Canada in 1991 and has called it home ever since. Her memoir of her life in Iran, Prisoner of Tehran, was published by Penguin Canada. Prisoner of Tehran has been short listed for many literary awards, including the Young Minds Award in the United Kingdom and the Borders Original Voices Award in the United States. On December 15, 2007, Marina received the inaugural Human Dignity Award from the European Parliament and in October 2018 she received the prestigious Grinzane Prize in Italy. In 2008-2009, she was an Aurea Fellow at University of Toronto's Massey College, where she wrote her second book, After Tehran, which was published by Penguin Canada in September 2010.
