"My pen's broken/ and it's not in my hand./ They took my voice/as a spoil of oppression..."  

— so PEN Pinter Writer of Courage and longtime prisoner of conscience Mahvash Sabet wrote from the depths of Tehran's notorious Evin prison. What does it take to survive a twenty-year-long prison sentence as a poet who is a member of a persecuted minority? How do you write when you have no pen or paper?

Come and listen Dr. Sandra Hutchinson read from and discuss Mahvash's Sabet's testimony about a life of letters lived against all odds, as set down in her second book of prison poems, A Tale of Love.  This book is translated from Persian to English by Dr. Sandra Lynn Hutchison of Orono and Shahin Mowzoon and has an introduction by the 2023 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, Narges Mohammadi.

About Sandra

Sandra Lynn Hutchison is the author of two books of poetry, The Art of Nesting (GR Books) and The Beautiful Foolishness of Things, which was a finalist for the Poet’s Corner Chapbook Contest, as well as a memoir about China, Chinese Brushstrokes (Turnstone Press). She serves as the editor of e*lix*ir, an online journal of the arts founded in 2015 to showcase art that celebrates the power of spirit.

Her translation, with Shahin Mowzoon, of Mahvash Sabet’s second volume of prison poems, A Tale of Love, with an introduction by Nobel Laureate Narges Mohammadi, was published by GR Books in 2024. She is the author of numerous essays. Her stories have appeared in publications such as Chinese Pen: Western Ink, and the Oxford anthology of stories about China. 

Hutchison holds a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Toronto and is the recipient of various academic and literary awards, including a Killam Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, an Emily Dickinson Poetry Prize, and a Jane Kenyon Poetry Fellowship from Bennington College. She lives in Orono, Maine, where she teaches scriptural exegesis and mentors writers in courses in creative writing she offers through the Wilmette Institute. She also serves as faculty for the BIHE (Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education), an online university in which she teaches journalism, essay writing, and storytelling to Bahai youth who are banned from attending public universities in Iran.