Imir Mammadli was born on 17 August 1957 in the Kaspi district of Georgia. After finishing secondary school, he continued his education at the faculty of philology of Tbilisi State University (1975–1980). In the 1980s Imir Mammadli moved to Tbilisi, and from 1985 to 1990 he worked at the Georgian State Radio and Television Company, at the Writers' Union of Georgia, and in the editorial office of the newspaper "Soviet Georgia." In the late 1990s he served as an adviser and consultant in the apparatus of the head of state of Georgia (1992–1996), as a referent on inter-ethnic relations at the State Chancellery of Georgia (1996–2000), and rose to the position of deputy head of the Service of Regional Policy and Administration of the President of Georgia. He chaired the Azerbaijani Writers' Section under the Writers' Union of Georgia (1995–2003). From 2004 to 2019 he served as director of the "Literature and Art" department of radio at the Public Television and Radio Broadcasting Company. Since 2019 he has worked at the State Translation Centre under the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Azerbaijan. He began his literary activity in his secondary school years. He writes in both Azerbaijani and Georgian. He is the author of seven original books and more than ten translated books. Nine feature films have been made based on his screenplays; of these, one full-length feature film and five television films were made on state commission, and one full-length film was produced by Turkish filmmakers; four of his plays have been staged in Azerbaijani theatres. He was the first to translate Shota Rustaveli's poem "The Knight in the Panther's Skin" into Azerbaijani directly from the original, in poetic form. He has translated the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, a collection of poems by Yunus Emre, the works of Ashig Alasgar, an anthology of contemporary Azerbaijani prose, Isa Muganna's collection of novellas and short stories, and samples of contemporary Azerbaijani poetry into Georgian. He is an honorary member of the Azerbaijan Society of Intellectuals (1997), a member of the World Azerbaijanis' Cultural Centre (1998), and was elected a member of the Coordinating Council of World Azerbaijanis at the First Congress of World Azerbaijanis (2001). For his services he has been awarded numerous state and literary prizes: laureate of the President's Prize of the Republic of Azerbaijan (2010), special prize laureate of the competition dedicated to the memory of National Hero Mubariz Ibrahimov (2011), laureate of the State Prize of Georgia (2001), the "Machabeli" prize (1997), the Tbilisi Loyalty medal (1999), the Order of "Honour" (2000), and laureate of the Writers' Union's "UGART" prize (2005).
