Mirzai, Behnaz

Behnaz Mirzai is Professor of Middle Eastern history at Brock University, Canada. She has authored numerous articles on slavery and the African diaspora in Iran; edited “The Baluchi and Baluchistan” (a special issue of the Journal of the Middle East and Africa); co-edited Slavery, Islam and Diaspora, and Africa and Its Diasporas: Rethinking Struggles for Recognition and Empowerment; and produced two documentary films, Afro-Iranian Lives and The African-Baluchi Trance Dance. The former film received special mention at the Zanzibar International Film Festival. She is the author of A History of Slavery and Emancipation in Iran, 1800–1929, which was shortlisted for the 2018 Canadian Historical Association Wallace K. Ferguson Prize. Her book, “The Life of an Enslaved African in the Ottoman Empire and Iran: Autobiography of Mahboob [Beloved],” is under contract with University of Toronto Press.