Lessons from inside the ring

I understand that there is great political sensitivity when it comes to addressing women’s needs and rights in Iran and which with the increased activism on the part of women in demand of their rights is also on the rise, making it difficult for the UN and even some sympathetic government officials to work with women’s rights groups in addressing women’s needs. But certainly I believe that at a minimum there should be efforts expended to understand, take into account and build upon the innovative work which women’s rights activists in Iran have done. In fact, this should be a prerequisite for anyone wanting to address women’s rights and issues>>>

Zoroastrian Poem

My friend Dolly was the last one who saw P. alive. Peter Rostopovich Stihotvoreniev was Dolly’s boyfriend, but everybody had already forgotten his full name. It was Dolly who introduced him as P. We were both poets. Living in this town, surrounded by the shores of the Pacific Ocean, the tang of civilization had dispersed in the salty waves of our encircling borders and we were slowly being isolated by the rest of the world. A narrow path was the only link between the city and the continent. Many immigrants had found refuge in this far island and we suspected they could be escaping from something horrific in their past>>>

Riposte

Before the empire's rage,
before dark men, in shadows,
furious in the calm that reigned,
or will deservedly reign,
narrowed eyes, narrowed lips
and for what glory?
For what power and dominion?
For flamed swords? Taken from
the hands of fallen angels? >>>

حریق

وجدی موواد در زمینه تئاتر، نمایشنامه نویس و کارگردان و بازیگر است و جوایز بسیاری دریافت کرده که یکی از آنها جایزه مولیر در سال 2005 است که آن را به دلیل بی توجهی ناشران به کار نمایشنامه نویسان جوان در فرانسه رد کرد. او در فرانسه بسیار محبوب است و در سالهای اخیر نمایشنامه هایش مرتب در سالنها به روی صحنه رفته است و یا در جشنواره های فرانسه اجرا می شود. نمایشنامه "حریق"، با مرگ زنی آغاز می شود و با خواندن وصیت نامه اش. او برای هر یک از دو فرزند بازمانده (یک دختر و پسر دوقلو)، نامه ای گذاشته است که در آن نامه از هر دوشان می خواهد به جستجوی پدر و برادر خود بروند و نامه ای از مادر خود را به او بدهند. "حریق" بازتاب جنگ و پرتاب شدن در جهانی سوزان و در میان شعله های آتش است.>>>

Got Depression?

My brother called the other day. I was a bit surprised. We don’t talk much. Life has been busy and our relationship has been reduced to quick chitchats, consisting of a few words and not much content. We sometimes go for months without talking. Dealing with kids, wives, demanding jobs, the in-laws, and everything in between, leave us both with no time or energy to keep the communication channels open. He sounded stressed on the phone. “What’s wrong?” I asked him. “Well, you know, shit hit the fan with Kami. We got issues,” My brother said. Kami is my brother’s teenaged son. The kid is a bit strange and very shy. He is one them kids who wear only black and walk around in long trench coats and military boots. He scares me.>>>

A Dead Man, a Wife, a Mistress, and a Daughter

Last March I went to see Darvag Theater’s play, In Memory of Kazem Ashtari with dear friends in Berkeley. I was blown away by the play’s original storyline, the crisp and clever dialogue, and the stellar performances of its cast. I found the whirlwind of plot twists and developments dazzling and so entertaining! Sepideh Khosrowjah’s dialogues all through a complex plot were exquisitely simple, yet thought provoking. What would a woman do when her husband dies suddenly? What would she and her late husband’s mistress tell each other if they were to meet? This story is delicious!>>>

The perfect home

“The Woman of Willendorf”, is the oldest human figurine known to the mankind. The 11-centimeter statute shows a faceless female body with out-of-proportionally large breasts, large tummy and accentuated reproductive organ. This ornament that was made in Austria about 30,000 years ago is neither a representation of a typical prehistoric female body nor comparable to Roman and Greek art in which women are subject to the wild fantasies. You might ask what the heck is it then? One of the strongest theories suggests that it is the symbol of Earth. Having this in mind makes it easier to understand that the large body parts are strictly symbolizing the concept of fertility. From Willendorf village 30,000 years ago to Las Vegas metro in 2006, we hear one voice. The mother earth for thousands of years has provided us with an infinite amount of resources>>>

Reading Kafka at Harvard (4)

On January 27, 1996, the Boston Herald featured a rather unusual article that, its title alone – Harvard professor’s galpal accuses his rival of extortion – must have given serious shivers to Henry James in his grave. Times have surely changed for the worse at Harvard and, sitting in jail like one of Becket’s clowns waiting for a just and expedient end to the horror leveled on me and my family, I concentrated on the necessary antidotes that would keep me from being fated like another Joseph K. The article is worth quoting at length: “A muddied case of alleged extortion, spiced with Middle East intrigue and Harvard prestige grew even murkier yesterday when the only real witness did not pick out the alleged bad guy in court…Shobhana Rana claims she twice turned over $250 payments of her professor-boyfriend’s cash to a death-threatening Iranian last Fall>>>

بیقراریِ عمر

گفتم ببین:
«سالهاست بیقرارم.
تلخیِ این سرما
بیدار نخواهد کرد
آرامشِ گرمِ مهرم را.»
«این که می خروشد،
آن که می تپد
قرنهاست، در من است.» >>>

For young readers

This project started more than a decade ago when I was searching the public libraries for books for children on Iranian culture and history. While there was ample information on many ancient civilizations like Egypt, China, India, Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome, there was virtually nothing to be found on Iran. I was saddened by the lack of material and always dreamed of the day all kinds of books on Iran would be available for all young readers around the world. My dream was realized mainly because of the revolutionary new technology that has emerged with digital photography and new advances in book publishing. Thirty years ago publishing a pictorial history with 264 high quality images would have been the task for professional and established publishers with resources and lots of money>>>

The Riddle of Natanz

I have always been drawn to those who are dangerous in some way: those who love too passionately, who think (and act) too radically, whose imaginations are easily heated to incandescence. So I should not complain when I get burned and lose everything. We need to experience the “Grand Passions” at least once in our lives. We need to live life at white-hot heat to feel that we are truly alive and human. “I am alive, therefore I bleed. I am human, therefore I weep”. But what I value more than the “grand passions” of Life is a subtler form of emotion that is paradoxically more potent than passion. I hesitate to call it “tenderness” because that word has other implications, but I have no other word large or clean enough to describe it. Physical consummation is no more than a crude metaphor for this Love. It flows from the most vulnerable places in us, those of least resistance which, I suppose, we have to call the “soul”.>>>