Athena Farrokhzad

(Iran, 1983) is a Swedish poet, playwright, translator, literary critic and feminist. Her family escaped Iran in the eighties. She is an important voice in Scandinavian societal debate. Her debut collection Vitsvit (2013) was an international success and translated into 12 languages (into English as White Blight). It gives a voice to several members of a refugee family and shows how themes such as migration, integration, racism, revolution and war influence their lives. Farrokhzad also published two anthologies, Manualen with Tova Gerrge and Ett tunt underlag with the poetry group G=T=B=R=G, both in 2009. She was editor of the queer poetry collection Omslag with Linn Hansén and organized literary events such as Queerlitt, Demafor and World Poetry Day. The collection Trado, which she wrote with the Romanian poet Svetlana Cârstean, was published in 2016, followed by the collection I rörelse in 2019. She is also the literary critic of the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.