OBSERVER
The Three Iranian Sopranos
Since they were children in Iran, the sisters Shirin and Nasrin Asgari dreamt of becoming opera singers. They spent their playtime pretending be Julie Andrews in
The Sound of Music. Later they made friends with Kamelia Dara, who had also been training to sing since early childhood, and practiced together. Yet hard work and ambition could only take the aspiring artists so far. They quickly realized they needed better training than they could find in Iran. Opera is rooted in Europe; you can’t perfect it in Tehran any more than you can perfect the Persian
radif of music in Vienna. So the three came to Austria on tourist visas, hoping they could pass the auditions to be admitted as students
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2009 Benjamin Franklin Medal Winner
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POETRY
The words are pealing
on a moist Tuesday morning
to be a reminder of the mortality
of all. The pain, a burning ocean causes
while it pours through the fist,
and the fist pushes through the heart.
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POETRY
I am the only one of four sisters
who hasn’t gone under the knife.
I resisted the pleas of my aunt and sisters
to become “more beautiful,” “more you.”
I’ve kept my stately proboscis
in-tact—choosing not to excise its grandeur.
It suits me, I suppose—evidence of my father,
those people who live in the dryer, hotter climes
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Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi spends NowRuz the Persian New Year with Iranian Refugees and Assylum Seekes in London. (March 21st, 2005)
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BBC Documentary: a film by Maziar Bahari
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متاسفانه از دین یک برداشت بسیار غلط دریافت شده است
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