Salimeh Babakhan born in 1986 in IRAN. From her childhood years she has been in love with the wonderful world of painting and imagination. Salimeh graduated with a master’s degree in illustration from Tehran University of Art. Since then, She discovered a deep passion for visual storytelling and illustrating picture books on her heart and mind.

Salimeh is one of the seven young illustrators in the inter-cultural project for producing quality picture books for “Read with Me” program (The Dialogue Between Two Diverse Worlds). The project is being implemented since 2015 by Marit Törnqvist, the renowned Swedish-Dutch illustrator, as the art director, and also Zohreh Ghaeini, the Iranian researcher and reading promoter.

Her cooperation with this project has resulted in the production of two books, including “18+2 Woodpeckers” and “The Color of the Crow’s Dream”. The former book has been nominated and appreciated for several illustrations award and published in Farsi and Turkish. The second book will be published by Querido (Netherland) in 2024.

“Little Whale’s Big Dream” is her first picture book that is written and illustrated by herself and published by TUTI Books in 2021 and will be published Arabic edition soon.

Her illustrations have won or been nominated in competitions such as White Ravens list, Golden Pen of Belgrade, Cow Festival, Bologna Children’s Book Fair, AFCC, Image of the Book, Little Hakka and Brightness Award; and have also been shown in exhibitions in several countries such as Iran, South Korea, United States, France, Italy, Germany, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Serbia, Singapore, China and Russia.

She works on 3 fields of illustration:
Picture books, fabric design and wooden toys!

She sees art as a way for coping with life and overcoming troubles in the world such as inequality and human suffering. Salimeh creates artistic works with the hope that one day, all children would be safe from war and violence and experience peace and freedom in their lives.