Sakineh Arabnejad

Sakineh Arabnejad is an Iranian writer, playwright, journalist, and teacher specialising in theatre. She holds a BA in Dramatic Arts from the University of Tehran and an MA in Dramatic Literature from the Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran. Arabnejad’s work focuses on issues related to women, children, social, and environmental concerns.

For over 20 years, Arabnejad has worked on translating plays from English to Persian, writing radio plays, scripts, writing articles for newspapers and journals, and teaching performance arts at schools and universities.

In 2014, Arabnejad founded a theatre institute ‘The School of the 1001 Nights’. She also founded and taught the theatre course at Shahid Bahonar University.

As a woman in the public sphere, Arabnejad faced censorship, bans on publishing and employment, interrogations, and persecution. She was expelled from the Shahid Bahonar University and her theatre institute was closed. Unable to continue working in Iran, she fled to Armenia in 2023.  

In December 2024, Sakineh Arabnejad arrived in Norway to begin a two-year ICORN residency in Trondheim. She continues working from Norway. In April 2025, she published an essay about theater and performance in Iran in the publication Scenekunst.