Simin Behbahani (Khalili) was born in 1927 in Tehran, Iran, of literary parents. Her father, Abbas Khalili, writer and newspaper editor, had tens of publications to his credit. Her mother, Fakhr Azami Arghoon (Fakhr E- Aal-E-Khalatbari), was a noted feminist, teacher, writer, newspaper editor, and a poet.

Simin began singing poetry at the age of fourteen and published her first poem at same age. She used the "Char Pareh" style of Nima, a renowned poet of Persian history, and subsequently, turns to "Ghazal", a free flowing, and poetry style similar to the Western "Sonnet". She contributed to a historic development in the form of the "Ghazal", as she added theatrical subjects, and daily events and conversations into this style of poetry.

The Ghazals of Simin Behbahani are a unique style, which defines her as a one and only, and well distinguished in her style of poetry. Simin Behbahani has expanded the range of traditional Persian verse forms and produced some of the most significant works of Persian literature in the twentieth century.

She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1997, She was also awarded a Human Rights Watch-Hellman/Hammet grant in 1998, and similarly, in 1999, the Carl von Ossietzky Medal, for her struggle for freedom of expression in Iran.