The prestigious award is bestowed on a writer living in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Commonwealth, or a former Commonwealth country. It recognizes a writer who, as Harold Pinter (for whom the prize is named) described in his Nobel acceptance speech, demonstrates an “unflinching, unswerving” perspective on the world and a '”fierce intellectual determination... to define the real truth of our lives and societies”. 

Recipients must have produced a significant body of work of exceptional literary merit in English. In announcing the award, fellow poet and chair of the panel of judges, Don Paterson, said: “For decades now his effortlessly lyric and fluent poetry has been wholly suffused with the qualities of humanity, humility and compassion, never shying away from the moral complexity that comes from seeing both sides of an argument.” 

A unique feature of the PEN Pinter Prize is that the recipient, in consultation with PEN’s Risk Committee, must choose a “Pinter International Writer of Courage”, a writer "who has been persecuted for speaking out about [his or her] beliefs". Both prize winners are honoured together during a ceremony held at the British Library in London, on or around October 10 each year, the anniversary of Pinter's birth.

Michael Longley chose to share his Pinter Prize with the Iranian poet, Mahvash Sabet. At that time she had just been released having spent many years in prison, one of many adherents of the Bahá’í Faith in Iran suffering persecution on account of their religious beliefs. 

While unjustly incarcerated, she penned an internationally acclaimed collection titled Prison Poems. Written on scraps of tissue paper and secreted away in her cell, her poetic record of imprisonment was sown into the coat of a fellow prisoner about to be released, smuggled out of Tehran’s Evin prison, translated and published.

“I am humbled to share the PEN Pinter Prize with Mahvash Sabet,” Longley said on the night he was honoured, “an Iranian poet condemned in 2010 to 20 years in prison simply because of her Bahá’í faith and her work on behalf of the Bahá’í community…” 

She had been, he continued, “a songbird trapped in a cage.” Mahvash, he averred, is “at heart a lyrical poet who sings the beauty of the world. Her imagination is rhapsodic. Her poems want to soar. I rejoice that she has been released from prison.” 

Though Mahvash had been freed just weeks before the prize-giving ceremony, she was unable to attend and instead sent a heartfelt greeting to those gathered. “Ten years of my life have just passed behind bars, and as I re-enter the world I find myself given this incredible award,” she wrote.

Thinking of those left behind filled her with sadness. “So in the midst of my wonder, I am filled with anguish,” she continued. 

She said:

I am torn between joy and sorrow... And in thanking you for this great honour, I would like to speak on behalf of all whose rights and freedoms have been deprived. 

She was effusive in her gratitude to PEN for their recognition, and for their support of beleaguered writers throughout the world. “When I suffered in prison, your compassion sustained me all through those dark years, your sincere support encouraged me”, she concluded.

In a personal note addressed to her co-winner, Mahvash expressed her appreciation and deep admiration. “The person to whom I owe my deepest gratitude today is you, sir, Mr Michael Longley, the poet of Belfast. You have found words for the suffering in your country. 

"You write with an honesty, a directness, and a courage that I admire with all my heart. To be your chosen, 'Writer of Courage'‚ is a distinction I will try to deserve for the rest of my life.” She hoped they would meet one day, she said, so that she could express her gratitude in person. But that was not to be. 

Mahvash Sabet was once again arrested in July 2022 and has since been sentenced to a further 10 years in prison on spurious charges. 

Recently she has been in hospital recovering from heart surgery and faces the prospect of being returned to her prison cell. She is one of numerous Bahá’í women imprisoned in a new wave of gender-based persecution of the religious minority.

We do not know if Mahvash is aware that Michael Longley has passed away — it is likely that she does. Her daughter, Negar (who lives in Australia), has tweeted sending “heartfelt condolences to the family of the peerless Irish poet, Michael Longley … Our families will be forever connected.” 

Michael Longley’s final words of tribute to Mahvash, delivered on the night they received the Pen Pinter Prize, express his great poetic ability to fashion cogent thoughts from a short few words. 

They reveal a warm and generous spirit, and evidence an indelible connection between one of Ireland’s greatest poets and an Iranian “songbird”. Echoing William Blake, he said; “Her incarceration by the Iranian authorities was a sin against the light. The power of dictators to silence and imprison writers continues to ‘put all heaven in a rage’.”

• Brendan McNamara is a member of the study of religions department at University College Cork