Bänoo Zan (Alex Usquiano)

Poet, translator, and essayist Bänoo Zan has been named the recipient of the 2025 Freedom to Read Award.

The annual award is presented during Freedom to Read Week each year by the Writers’ Union of Canada, and recognizes work that supports access to books and the freedom to read. Previous winners include authors David A. Robertson, Ivan Coyote, and Lawrence Hill, booksellers Anjula Gogia and Janine Fuller, and last year’s winner, journalist and author Brandi Morin.

Zan grew up in Iran but left in 2010 so that she could live and write more freely. In an interview on CBC’s Ideas in 2022, she called herself a “war correspondent in verse,” as she reports on the injustices Iranians face. She has published more than 300 poems and poetry-related pieces and three books, including the poetry collections Songs of Exile and Letters to My Father. She is also the co-editor of the forthcoming poetry anthology Woman, Life, Freedom: Poems for the Iranian Revolution, to be published on April 1 by Guernica Editions. Zan is also the founder of the Shab-e-She’r poetry reading series, a monthly event in Toronto that began in 2012 founded on Zan’s commitment to freedom of expression.

Zan says she was “thrilled” to be named the recipient of this year’s Freedom to Read Award, and thankful to the Writers’ Union and to the jury and those who nominated her for the honour. She says that the freedom to read depends on the freedom to write, which she sees as curtailed in almost every country, often by those in the writing and publishing communities.

“The world is more divided and we’re not really using literature or language or words in general to communicate ideas to people who do not think like us, or who do not see the world the way we do, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of writing and reading,” she says. “You don’t need to limit your reading to material that reinforces what you already believe in, and you don’t need to write for the people who already believe in what you believe in.”

In planning her reading series, Zan aims to feature two poets each month who do not know each other and who come from different communities to foster conversation.

“We’ve had wonderful events where people really connected with each other people from very diverse backgrounds,” she says. “I think people are hungry for communication, but we’re not providing them with a better alternative.”

Zan was nominated by a fellow Canadian author, who wrote in their nomination that Zan “has demonstrated her commitment to enriching the lives of others and the communities in which they live, by creating brave spaces for freedom of expression.” The nominating author also praised Zan’s “dedication and many contributions to ensuring diverse voices are heard (in verbal and written form).”