Maryam Aras was born in Cologne in 1982. After studying Oriental Studies, Political Science and American Literature at the Oriental Seminar of the University of Cologne and at the Institute for Oriental and Asian Studies at the University of Bonn, she wrote her doctoral thesis on the political role of religious singers in contemporary Iran. As a freelance author, she writes literary criticism, essays, and radio features for 54books and Westdeutscher Rundfunk, among others, as well as texts on gender studies, culture and politics in Iran and the Iranian diaspora, contemporary German literature by postmigrant authors and their reception in the feuilleton and literary establishment.