AUTHOR

Part I: The Meeting

About a year ago I received an email: It said, "Dear Leora Douraghy: I read your poem At Home in the World in Iranian.com several times with great interest. It evoked such indiscernible feelings in me! Thank you. I like to read more of your other works. Where do I find them? I have a poem in Iranian.com entitled: “At home in Diaspora”. You may like it! …. my most recent book, a novel in verse, is called Dardedel: Rumi, Hafez and Love in New York. Libraries have it. Best, Manoucher Parvin.”

I proceeded to read and greatly enjoy Dr. Parvin’s poem and his novels. I also learned a great deal from them. The author and I exchanged some poems and thoughts, and gradually became friends, along with my husband, who is also from Iran. Being an amateur poet myself as well as a professional editor, I encouraged Dr. Parvin to let me read his current manuscript: Out of the Gray.

Recently Dr. Parvin sent me a copy of his just-published novel, Alethophobia. Before reading it, I always assumed that the ultimate sanctuary of truth is the world of academia. Apparently this is not always so. The main character in Alethophobia, Professor Pirooz, tells how the fear of truth (alethophobia) affected the lives of a nexus of students, faculty and administrators on the seemingly serene campus of a midwestern university in the 1980’s, and how it threatened to compromise academic freedom as well as his own career.

I offered to interview Dr. Parvin about the book, and he agreed. Since we have not yet met in person, this conversation was carried out via phone and email.

Part II: The Conversation

Leora Douraghy (LD): What inspired you to write Alethophobia?

Manoucher Parvin (MP):You are opening an old wound with this question, so expect the pain of a long answer! My harrowing yet hilarious life, and that of other dissidents, inspired me to tell the story. My relentless search for truth and my wish to share my findings provided the motivation. I've been condemned to challenge established codes of belief and behavior all my life. This novel describes the nature of freedom, the types and degrees of freedom, and the question of freedom-for-whom. It demonstrates that academic freedom is a far cry from what it is claimed to be. In one of his lectures, Professor Pirooz raises his voice in excitement to exclaim: "The biggest brainwashing in America is that there is no brainwashing in America! And that brainwashing takes place only in other countries. We are brainwashed to believe in these two false propositions!" I feel that without proper information about alternative possibilities, a decision maker is lost. So votes cast by uninformed masses listening to paid political ads do not add up to real democracy. From the first grade onwards, students are kept in the dark about alternative ways of looking at the world. The history that they learn, often lies about the history of lies!

LD
But there are many accurate history and reference books in our libraries, available to anyone who wants to study them.

MP
Yes, there are plenty of eye-opening books there, but not many students are guided and encouraged to read them. We do not just tell students that there are good math books in the library, we offer math courses and teach them all that is known about math. Broadly speaking, social scientists, historians, and broadcasters find that in their work, they must observe an invisible code of expression and conduct. This code, however, is not imposed by the government, as in a dictatorship. It is more subtle, as we learn in Alethophobia. Professor Pirooz must dissimulate and dissimulate in order to obtain tenure and continue his work, until finally his frustrations boil over and nullify his instinct for survival. He then loses control of himself and becomes a whistle blower and ends up with a broken whistle and a broken heart and a broken existence.

LD
I’m not quite sure what is meant by “an invisible code of expression and conduct”, but it does appear that even suggesting that freedom of speech in the U.S. could be compromised would be seen by many Americans as heresy.

MP
I agree. But heresy or not, truth is truth. Didn't I just tell you that my life has been a difficult one, a truly challenging one for me? My own dreads, laughter and tears-- induced when I exercised this supposed ‘academic freedom’ -- are reflected in Alethophobia.

LD
I could not find "alethophobia" in the dictionary, but a complete dictionary-type definition of it appears on the cover of your novel. Can you tell me where this word came from?

MP
More than twenty years ago, when I was experiencing the fear of truth, I asked a Greek colleague of mine, over a glass of wine, "What is the word for truth in Greek?" He said "aletho." Then I asked him if I could use it as a prefix to "phobia," to create "alethophobia." He said it would be a new Greek word, but that it would be possible. It took me years to write the novel Alethophobia and then a few more years to find a publisher courageous enough to print it. It was completed well before my novel Dardedel, which was published in 2003.

LD
So, in effect, you have added a new word to our language, complete with definitions and grammatical usage. With your permission, I shall use it from now on.

MP
Yes, by all means. Be my guest. I must admit that I am guilty of having invented quite a few words in English

LD
In your opinion, what is the root cause of alethophobia? Aren't we all to some extent alethophobic?

MP
In answer to your second question: Yes! (I see that now you are using my invented adjective “alethophobic”!) Socially we are alethophobic for sure, and even genetically, perhaps. As to the root cause: I think alethophobia is embedded in the genes of Homo sapiens, just as fear of the predator is embedded in the genes of the prey! For example, we are afraid of the truth about death – I mean the finality of death – so we invent stories about life after death with no evidence to back them up other than faith! Also, we are afraid to know or hear the truth about ourselves, or about what we think we know as fact! Consider this: Slavery is a high-maintenance form of economic exploitation. So religion and ideology are used to rationalize the system (as has also been done with feudalism, capitalism and even a warped type of socialism), in such a way that the indoctrinated are frightened of learning the truth of their condition. Peasants were indoctrinated with the idea that God loved the poor above all others, and most of them believed it! The dissidents who see the truth of exploitation and oppose it are suppressed. They become the prey of alethophobia. In this scenario, brute force need only be applied against a few dissidents; thus exploitation with indoctrination is less costly to exploiters than relying on force alone.

LD
Has the sociologist now taken over the conversation that I was having with the novelist?

MP
Please let him finish relating the social history that underlies my novel!

LD
Sorry! Do go on.

MP
It took seventy years of bloody struggle for workers in the United States to achieve collective bargaining rights to diminish exploitation. It took a brutal civil war to free the slaves and send them north to mines and factories for a more modern type of exploitation! It took suffrage and civil right movements to extend the voting rights to women and to the blacks in the south. And even though at the beginning, only white male property owners could vote -- roughly 3% of the population -- and despite this history of struggles, we are told that in the United States we have enjoyed continuous democracy for over two hundred years.

LD
Is Professor Pirooz always a ‘reliable narrator’ of his story (and history)?

MP
By asking about the reliability of Pirooz as narrator you are opening an old wound again! Frankly, I do not know who is, or who could be a truly ‘reliable narrator'. Even God’s narrations can be questioned! Have you read the Bible or Koran? Adam and Eve and the serpent and all? And that the physical world, man and beasts and plants are now exactly the same as they were on the first day of creation? No change at all, no evolution, no nothing! Professor Pirooz certainly tries to be a reliable narrator but he confesses in Alethophobia that his narration suffers from self-censorship! Your answer is in the book!

LD
What prevents you -- I mean, Pirooz -- from telling it all?

MP
Pirooz does not dare to tell it as it is, all the way. So Professor Pirooz is not a completely reliable narrator. But, between publishing some of his thoughts and none of his thoughts, Pirooz chooses the first alternative. Notice how we are shackled by the political-correctness syndrome imposed on us by the politically incorrect bosses of various denominations! Even spouses do, at times, censor their strongest feelings or thoughts from each other. Mankind is condemned to censorship.

LD
Professor Pirooz's son, Bobby, tells some truths about Christopher Columbus in his high school American history class, and pays dearly for it, even on the soccer field. This seems to parallel his father's experiences on the university campus. Does this story parallel any real-life experiences of yours?

MP
Absolutely! Even though it seems unbelievable and astonishing! Alethophobia is the story of my life, Pirooz’s life, Bobby's life, and the life of dissidents throughout history. To various degrees, it is also the story of educational systems. In every country, indoctrination is embodied in formal education. In elementary schools in Iran we were indoctrinated to put God, the Shah, and the country above everything else. When I questioned this, I was punished for it. (The details will appear in my memoir!) Alethophobia is the story of an accented professor who speaks out about conditions here, instead of just being thankful to be here. We Americans adore dissidents, as long as they cause trouble for our enemies in other countries! We just don't like them here!

LD
I’m not sure I agree with this last statement. Can you give me some examples other than from your own experiences?

MP
I am sure you must have heard of teachers that have been threatened and even fired for teaching evolution instead of fairy tales. In some schools, literary classics have been banned, or have disappeared from school libraries. Young professors who have been denied tenure for their political views are given ludicrous ‘official’ reasons that have nothing to do with reality – reasons that we in the profession call “Factor X”.

LD
How would you describe the characters in the novel?

MP
They represent a cross section of American society. All races and various ethnic groups are represented; individuals from different economic and professional levels interact. Yet, virtually all the characters in Alethophobia are real. Only their names are changed for their protection (not for my protection! I am so tired of protecting myself! No more protection!) How much untruth and fractional truth can any life, my life, absorb and not crack open like a crushed cockroach? That is why I thank my students, colleagues and those administrators whose self-righteousness and viciousness towards me and professors like me, made Alethophobia possible! I also thank those other, kinder spirits at the University for resuscitating my psychological being when I needed it to survive! I wrote and I cried. I wrote and felt insecure and isolated. The unrelenting pain was my ink.

LD: But back to the characters …other than Professor Pirooz…where did you find them?

MP
I do not think them up, certainly. They find me in the real world. I keep my eyes open, really open, and look for them as if they were a set of my lost keys! And like a ready-to-shoot photographer, I just snap mental pictures of them when they appear in my view!

LD
On page 79 of the novel, there is a poem, “Breathing Poems” that I have read over and over, and would like to share with the readers who have stayed with us this far:

I shall breathe poems,
Until no poems
Are left in me to breathe
Then, my unloved poems,
Like artificial flowers
Languishing on my tombstone
Will be blown away
By homeless angry winds.
---

Why do you include poems in all of your novels?

MP
First, thank you for your appreciation of the poem! Second, why not have poems in a novel when a character is a poet, if his poem expresses a feeling or thought better than prose? If I could paint or compose music I would not hesitate to include that in my next novel, if it would work! Someone said poems are always new news! By the way, did you like the novel over all?

LD
Yes I did. I found it both thought-provoking and entertaining, and there were some wonderfully humorous moments. Concern about what was going to happen next to the professor, his son, his students and his loves, kept me turning the pages. Your publisher, however, certainly could have used a better proofreader! By the way, I am the one who is supposed to be asking the questions, Manoucher!

MP
Sorry, I had to trick you to find out what you thought of the novel!

LD
Did you have a specific audience in mind for the book, such as academics, students, etc., or is Alethophobia intended for the general public?

MP
Hopefully, all of the above---plus history. I want our progeny to know the state of political consciousness and the treatment of truth in our times, and how children are trained to see what they are told they are seeing, not what they are actually seeing with their own eyes and minds. I want them to know about the power of hypocrisy and brainwashing in our time, just as we learn today about the power of ignorance and the inquisition during the dark ages.

LD
What is your next venture?

MP
As if it were my lover, I've been hugging and caressing my current venture forever, it seems. It is a novel called Out of the Gray. It deals with consciousness and conscience, the origin and development of the belief in God, the biochemistry of love and happiness. It is my first adventure into neuroscience. It is done, yet not quite finished.

LD
I look forward to the publication of Out of the Gray.

MP
Thanks, and many thanks for the interview!

Part III: The Author

Professor Manoucher Parvin has published novels, poems, short stories and a number of scientific works. He has taught at Columbia University, Emory University, and the University of Akron. His first three novels: Cry for my Revolution, Iran; Avicenna and I (now in its second printing) and the novel-in-verse, Dardedel:Rumi, Hafez, and Love in New York have received reviewer acclaim. His fourth novel, Alethophobia has just been published; his fifth novel, Out of the Gray is being readied for publication. Professor Parvin continues to be involved in the areas of human rights, the environment, and the promotion of democracy. He has lectured and appeared as a TV and radio commentator both here and abroad. He is active in various sports and dancing, is a chess writer and chess addict, and is said to be more than a tolerably good cook.

Manoucher Parvin welcomes anyone who wishes to contact him. His email address is: mparvin@adelphia.net

Alethophobia available at Amazon.com and Iranbooks.net.