(NEW YORK) — PEN America and PEN Sydney were today joined by noted authors Margaret Atwood, Khaled Hosseini, Azar Nafisi, and George Saunders, among others, in urging the Iranian government to immediately release poet Ali Asadollahi from Evin prison, where he is being routinely interrogated, pressured to make a forced confession, and denied access to a lawyer. In a public letter signed by more than 100 authors, poets, journalists, and scholars, PEN America insists Asadollahi, and all writers unjustly detained in Iran, be freed immediately.
“As Ali Asadollahi marks one month behind bars, his detention is an urgent issue that must not be forgotten among all the other shocking news coming out of Iran,” said Karin Deutsch Karlekar, PEN America’s director of writers at risk. “The brutal arrest and subsequent treatment of Ali has become the rule, not the exception, when it comes to how Iran treats its writers in its escalating crackdown on free expression and dissent. We call for his immediate release, as well as freedom for all other unjustly detained writers.”
The letter, organized by PEN America with support from PEN Sydney and diaspora Iranian writers and academics, is signed by more than 100 writers from around the world, including J.M. Coetzee, Ariel Dorfman, Louise Erdrich, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Franzen, Kylie Moore Gilbert, John Green, Nicole Krauss, Jhumpa Lahiri, Jonathan Lethem, Colum McCann, Claire Messud, David Remnick, Molly Ringwald, Elif Shafak, Art Spiegelman, Amy Tan, andColm Tóibín. It calls for an immediate end to state violence “which is undertaken purposefully and preemptively in order to silence voices of dissent and to crush cultural and intellectual resistance.”
Asadollahi, a noted poet, translator, and writer who is also a member of the Iranian Writers’ Association (IWA), has published six poetry collections and has most recently been recognized by Lunch Ticket with the Gabo Prize. His work has also been seen in Sky Island Journal, Hypertext Magazine, Diode Poetry Journal, Bellingham Review, and the anthology Woman Life Freedom (Guernica Editions, 2025).
“Ali Asadollahi is one of the most creative and committed poets of his generation,” said author, journalist, and translator Amir Ahmadi Arian, one of the letter’s signatories. “For more than two decades, he has devoted himself to writing and publishing poetry while also translating extensively between English and Persian. He does not deserve persecution by the state in any form, let alone imprisonment in solitary confinement and prolonged, brutal interrogations without access to a lawyer.”
Asadollahi was previously arrested in November 2022 in the midst of the Mahsa (Zhina) Amini uprising. During that detention, he was moved in and out of solitary confinement and interrogated repeatedly for extended periods of time.
He was arrested violently in the middle of the night on January 24, 2026, following ongoing mass protests against the Iranian government. Thousands of people have been killed, and at least 50,000 arrested during the brutal government response to the demonstrations, and Asadollahi is one of dozens of writers and artists swept up in the arrests. Iran’s country-wide protests were triggered by economic hardship that quickly became broader demands for political change. The protests began on December 28, 2025, and the violent state-directed crackdown on the demonstrations escalated dramatically on the nights of January 8 and 9, during which an estimated thousands of protestors were killed. In this environment, existing detainees – a number of whom are writers and scholars also being held in Evin and other prisons – are at heightened risk of custodial abuse.
Asadollahi’s detention is not an isolated incident. On January 8, IWA board member Yousef Ansari and another participant were arrested after reading a statement and poetry at a memorial ceremony for Baktash Abtin; he remains in detention. Abtin, a poet, filmmaker, IWA board member, and PEN/Barbey Freedom To Write Awardee, died in custody four years ago after delays in receiving medical treatment in prison; to date, there has been no accountability for his death. Since the 1980s, many IWA members have been jailed and killed for their support of free expression and opposition to state censorship.
In PEN America’s 2024 Freedom to Write Index, Iran ranked in second place globally, jailing a total of 43 writers during the year. Since the start of the June military conflict between Iran and Israel known as the Twelve-Day War, an increasing number of writers, scholars, poets, creative artists, social media commentators, and activists have been detained or received summonses, while others have faced extrajudicial threats or additional charges. More information on PEN America’s work on Iran is available here.
About PEN America
PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible.