Iranian-Canadian Author
Maryam Rafiee writes about what it costs to leave, what survives the crossing, and what it means to build a life between worlds. Her work — shaped by her father's imprisonment in Iran, her own immigration to Canada, and a decade of longing — has been published in The Globe and Mail, The New Quarterly, ROOM Magazine, and beyond.
I write about the lives we leave behind — and the ones we dare to build.
Books
Coming July 2026
A Story of Leaving, Losing and Becoming
A deeply personal memoir about exile, loss, and the slow work of belonging. Just days before leaving Iran, intelligence agents stormed her family’s home. Years later, she still carries the cost of that departure.
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Available July 7, 2026
Published Memoir
A Story Through Letters
Letters written to her imprisoned father became a moving testimony to love, survival, and political repression.
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Humber Literary Review
Fall/Winter 2022–23
I left Iran with two suitcases and a backpack brimming
with clothes and books, the essentials. I left behind
the rest of my belongings in my room at my parents’ home,
in Tehran. I assumed I would go back every year for a
visit and gradually bring what I’d left to my new home.
My mother kept my room intact for a year before she
realized I had no plans to go back.
Then she started convincing me to give away my stuff.
She went after ...
The Ex-Puritan · Issue 58
Summer 2022
Childhood memories of war, ration lines, and departure unfold through fragments of a country both lost and remembered.
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About
Maryam Rafiee is an Iranian Canadian lawyer, writer, and human rights advocate based in Toronto. Her work explores themes of displacement, political repression, memory, migration, and access to justice.
Contact
Whether you're a reader who wants to share your thoughts, a fellow writer seeking connection, or someone interested in my work — I'd love to hear from you.