Born in 1963 in Tehran, from an Azerbaijani family, Khosrow Hassanzadeh belongs to a generation that has witnessed two tumultuous social upheavals: the 1979 revolution and the Iran-Iraq war, events which were accompanied by great changes and devastation in Iran.

Hassanzadeh spent most of his childhood sneaking into museums and cinemas, a refuge from the busy streets of Tehran where he sold bananas to tourists near the National Museum. As a teenager he volunteered to fight on the lran-lraq front. When he returned from war, having “miraculously” escaped death, “a constant companion”, he chose a discipline that he had always dreamed about: painting and poetry.