Shokoofeh Azar is the author of essays, articles, and children’s books and is the first Iranian woman to hitchhike the entire length of the Silk Road. The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree, originally written in Farsi and translated by an anonymous translator, was shortlisted for Australia’s 2018 Stella Prize for Fiction and the 2020 International Booker Prize. It is her first novel to be translated into English.