novelists-from-iran

"(Q: What advice would you give to young writers?) A: Read, read and read. You can’t write without reading."

"Time has shown that the political system in our country can only change our holiday “Chehar-shanbeh Soori” (literally means ‘Wednesday celebration’) which is a sign of friendship and peace into “chehar-shanbeh Sooozi” (which translates to Wednesday inferno). The system that has created the conniving mentality of pitting “us” against “them” and it has to be removed by the root before we can do something for our own language. This language is a gift that has been handed down to us and the least we can do, is as much as forefathers did, which is pass it down to the next generation. We need to build hope against all this hopelessness that’s so rampant in our country."

"Censorship, which is a relic from the days of slavery, enslaves writers, painters, and filmmakers. It does not allow us to publish our books in an organic way…I am saddened for myself and my fellow writers who are embattled with a group of narrow-minded, self-absorbed people with underdeveloped principles, who still think they can create the world in their own image."

"I don’t know when we are going to realize that our language is our nation, and it goes wherever we go in mind, body and soul, and is part of the fabric of our existence."

"A free-thinking writer does not acquiesce to the mind-numbing laws of oppression. A free-thinking writer is against oppression, not a party to it."

"(Q: Who has influenced you most as a writer?) A: All the writers before me whom I have read. And even the writers I read these days. But Saedi was an important one. I read his sceneplays when I was a student. His stories have this ethereal quality that I genuinely enjoy. There was also Savushun, which I read as a student. Then there was Mahmoud Dolatabadi, whose characters were so powerful and familiar. Golshiri was another influence on me. He was a pioneer of using modern forms in Persian storytelling."

"(Q: What is your favourite theme?) A: Everything about man and their struggles, their falling in love, their endeavour for survival and their fight against tyranny, the tyranny of the society, the government, the family and the nature."

"(Q: How do the stories come to you?) A: Sometimes in a hazy and ambiguous form. An image, a memory, even the movement of a hand, whatever that inspires my imagination...Storms, the sea and its waves always bring me stories."

"Writing for me is survival...When I don’t write, I feel suffocated. Actually, I realised this after I immigrated to the US, that writing for me is living itself. Writing soothes me."

"Feminism is about defending the rights of women. I support any movement that in any way fights for the oppressed and the persecuted, whoever they are."

"Every writer has a unique outlook to the world. So, it’s just natural that the works be different. This diversity is the beauty of literature."

"In all fairness the Qur'an is a wonder. Its short suras of the Meccan period are charged with expressive force and persuasive power. Its style has no precedent in the Arabic language. Its effusion from the tongue of an illiterate man with no education, let alone literary training, is a phenomenon which, in this respect, can justifiably be described as a miracle."

"Although [Twenty Three Years] was written in 1937, it was only published in 1974, and probably in Beirut, since between 1971 and 1977 the regime of the Shah of Iran forbade publication of any criticism of religion. After the Iranian Revolution of 1979 Dashti authorized its publication by underground opposition groups. His book, whose title refers to the prophetic career of Muhammad, may well have sold over half a million copies in pirated editions between 1980 and 1986."

"Mohammad believed in what he said; he believed that he was inspired by God."

"Mohammad's greatness is unquestionable. He was one of the most outstanding men of genius who have appeared in human history. If the social and political circumstances of his time are taken into account, he has no equal among the initiators of major historical change. Men such as Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, Cyrus the Great, Chengiz Khan, or Timur do not bear comparison with him. They all had the support of the armed forces and public opinion of their peoples, whereas Mohammad made his way into history with empty hands and in a hostile society."

"When I first started writing, it was much more important for me to appeal to academic audiences or an imagined high-art literary audience. The older I get, the more important it is for me to communicate with everyone and anyone. Right now to me, America is in a crisis of constant misunderstandings. Some of it is willful ignorance, but some of it is not willful and it requires people to explain things…"

"I like ghosts as a metaphor for the outsider. I wish they were real; that would be my preferred afterlife plan. I'd love to observe and haunt with little involvement—I guess that's what being a writer is."

"We have a really shamefully horrid healthcare system, and I think that’s part of it. It’s much more convenient to think these people are just crazy, or it’s in their heads. It’s a very real thing; I don’t know of anyone who doubts it any more. Occasionally I encounter people that do. I’m astounded at their wilful ignorance; it’s not actual ignorance."

"Estrangement is a constant theme in all of my work. The thing that makes it really difficult is people will look at me and not understand why I feel like an outsider, or why I couldn’t belong in all kind of circumstances. I’m one of those people who visually presents as whoever you want—whatever ethnicity or race is predominant. For me, the challenge is always figuring out what people’s assumptions are, and how I can actually take up space against their assumptions. Because they’re almost always wrong about who I am. That’s a hard thing to get used to in America…"

"The words are not the same and the feeling is not the same. You know, they say in France that translation is like a woman. She is either beautiful or faithful. So it’s better when she’s beautiful because when she’s too faithful it might be very ugly. This is French people. This translation, though, is very well made. This is my American editor, who knows me very well who has made the translation. But in any translation you lose a little bit."

"When they talk about “The men ruined this, the men did that,” it is a person, and their sex comes after what they’ve done. I believe that we say too much “We the women” and “We the men,” but should say “We the human beings.” There are really two types of human being -- the ones who care about environment, who want a more just society; and the other ones who care about greed and war. So it’s not a question of East and West, and American and Iranian, and women and men."

"If the majority of people were right, we'd be living in paradise. But we are not living in paradise, we are living in hell. What does it mean? That means the majority of people are wrong. So I never believed what people told me."

"This is past, and it really comes from a very dark moment of my life. Dying is...When people say there is no alternative, there is always an alternative - to die, for example. It's a choice. You always have this choice."

"Well depressive, I don't know. If you have a little sensibility or a heart you have all the reason to be depressed once in a while. But the depression is like a motor for creation. I need a little bit of depression, a bit of acid in my stomach, to be able to create. When I'm happy I just want to dance.""

"Their Jewish God is heavy, Cruel and implacable. He always orders to kill and plunder people, and before the day of Resurrection, He sends Mr. Messiah so he can get his people's income and slaughter them so much that his horse's knees surge in blood."

"The Irish were actually Iranians who migrated to Western Europe, tried to change the word "Iran", removed "an" and replaced it with "eland" and became "Ireland". Germanics were Iranians who migrated from Kerman province to the center of Europe."

"Compare that to a fruit shop adorned with pleasant, lush colors that smell like pomegranate. Compare apples, oranges, cherries, peaches, grapes and melons, and the vivid colors of various vegetables to the butcher shop, the hanging heart and intestines, the severed corpses, the split bellies, the broken legs that hang, and drop blood dripping from it."

"It is true that the Arabs were too lowly to do such insolence, this sedition was started by Jewish spies and they created (Islam) with their own hands to overthrow the civilization of Iran and Rome and they achieved their goal, but like the staff of Moses that He turned into a dragon and Moses himself was afraid of him, this seventy-headed dragon is devouring the world"

"As long as we do not suffocate the natural emotions of our hearts by force, it is clear that there is a feeling of hatred in humans for killing and pain of other animals, and it is also clear that when all people are forced to kill the animals they eat with their own hands, most of them turn to vegetarianism."

"Everyone who eats meat must kill the animal himself. Because carnivorous animals do not take a assistant, or at least presence walk and spend an hour of their lives watching this beautiful meal and see how these delicious foods are prepared for them."

"It is said that their souls (animals) are inferior. Yes, but in the end, like us, they feel pain and joy. Their inferiority determines for us the duty of the elder brother, not the right of tyranny and oppression."

"It should be noted that vegetarianism is still a source of ridicule for those who do not know the truth; How easily we laughed at our ancestors, the day will come when future generations will laugh at our superstitions."

"If the human race is to reach its peak of development one day, it will be in a natural environment with plant food. As cannibalism and artificial civilization corrupt him and drag him to the abyss of nothingness. Unless a humane race and a non-native whose life is governed by the laws of nature succeed him, otherwise his race will be shamefully extinguished."

"Finally I realized that I was a demi-god and that I was beyond all the low, petty desires of mankind. I felt the eternal flux within me. What is eternity? Eternity for me was playing hide-and-seek with that whore on the banks of the Suren river; it was a momentary closing of my eyes when I hid my head in her lap."

"My life appeared to me as unnatural, uncertain and incredible as the design on the pencase I am using at this moment. It seems that a painter who has been possessed, perhaps a perfectionist, has painted the cover of this pencase. Often, when I look at this design, it seems familiar; perhaps it is because of this design that I write or perhaps this design makes me write."

"What is love? For the rabble love is a kind of variety, a transient vulgarity; the rabble's conception of love is best found in their obscene ditties, in prostitution and in the foul idioms they use when they are halfway sober, such as "shoving the donkey's foreleg in mud," or "putting dust on the head." My love for her, however, was of a totally different kind. I knew her from ancient times—strange slanted eyes, a narrow, half-open mouth, a subdued quiet voice. She was the embodiment of all my distant, painful memories among which I sought what I was deprived of, what belonged to me but somehow I was denied. Was I deprived forever?"

"What relationship could exist between the lives of the fools and healthy rabble who were well, who slept well, who performed the sexual act well, who had never felt the wings of death on their face every moment—what relationship could exist between them and one like me who has arrived at the end of his rope and who knows that he will pass away gradually and tragically?"

"I was growing inward incessantly; like an animal that hibernates during the wintertime, I could hear other peoples' voices with my ears; my own voice, however, I could hear only in my throat. The loneliness and the solitude that lurked behind me were like a condensed, thick, eternal night, like one of those nights with a dense, persistent, sticky darkness which waits to pounce on unpopulated cities filled with lustful and vengeful dreams."

"I was not in full control of myself, and it seemed that I knew her name from before. The evil in her eyes, her color, her scent and her movements were all familiar to me. It was as though my souls, in the life before this, in the world of imagination, had bordered on her soul and that both souls, of the same essence and substance, were destined for union. I must have lived this life very close to her. I had no desire to touch her; the invisible beams that emanated from our bodies and mingled were sufficient for me. Isn't this terrifying experience which seemed so familiar to met quite the same as the feelings of two lovers who feel that they have known each other before and that a mysterious relationship has previously existed between them? Was it possible that someone else could affect me? The dry, repulsive and ominous laughter of the old man, however, tore our bonds asunder."

"In this base world, full of poverty and misery, for the first time I thought a ray of sunshine had shone on my life. But alas, it was not a sunbeam, rather it was only a transient beam, a shooting star, which appeared to me in the likeness of a woman or an angel."

"I write only for my shadow which is cast on the wall in front of the light. I must introduce myself to it."

"In life there are certain sores that, like a canker, gnaw at the soul in solitude and diminish it. (opening line)"

"My little sister, she got me on Facebook because I was on MySpace: "No, no, no. You don't want to be on MySpace, you want to be on Facebook!" So I joined both. But I keep muddling them up, so I keep asking people to come on MyFace. Still, eighty thousand friends!"

"I'm actually going on holiday to India next month, and I wanted to know what the weather was gonna be like there, so I phoned my bank."

"I don't know if I would have been a stand-up comedian in Iran because, as you know, the government advocates free speech... but there's no freedom after you've spoken... It gets a bit deathy."