The Lioness of Iran
Shiva Rahbaran interviews Simin Behbahāni October 2011
Simin Behbahani
Iran’s most prominent poet, a two-time Nobel nominee, on the
greatest epic in history, the nightmare of censorship, and why her
country will eventually achieve democracy.
Simin Behbahāni is optimistic about where Persian thought and
literature are headed despite Iranian society’s many post-revolution
disillusionments. She speaks of the ruinous itinerary of the “literature
of censorship” and the phenomenon of self-censorship, but she believes
that exceptional knowledge has been stored up given Iranian social and
cultural resistance to the consequences of the 1979 revolution. This
knowledge creates fertile ground for the growth of contemporary Persian
literature. From this perspective, the importance of poets and writers
for the survival of Iranian civil society is undeniable. Behbahāni
points out that this role has been inherited today after a thousand
years of attacks on Iran’s writers and thinkers.....
Read more Guernica
Read more Guernica
No comments:
Post a Comment