Parinoush Saniee, the author who turned Iran’s silence right into a literary cry: “People stand firm against the bullets of this brutal regime” | Culture | EUROtoday

“People have psychologically reached the limit of their tolerance. They can no longer silence their screams; even in the face of the bullets of this brutal regime they remain firm and shout to recover their lost rights with their voices and achieve their demands,” Parinoush Saniee tells EL PAÍS concerning the present state of affairs in Iran. A sociologist and psychologist by coaching, a novelist by necessity, Saniee has turn into probably the most learn and translated Iranian writer on the earth, whereas her books stay strictly prohibited in her nation. Now, the Spanish reissue of a hidden voice y The e-book of my future (Alianza) returns to the middle of the controversy a piece that dialogues instantly with the protests that for years, and particularly in current weeks, have shaken the streets of the nation.

Given the present state of affairs in Iran, the interview is managed by way of electronic mail, even supposing, given the development of the protests, the Iranian regime minimize off the web all through the territory. For just a few days, whole silence: the editorial, which acts as a liaison, defined: “We have lost all contact with Parinoush. We have not heard anything from her in the last week. The blackout has apparently been very strong. Assuming it is just that, because we are worried.” Fortunately, communication may be recovered by way of mail and of their written responses the identical stress that runs by means of their novels resonates: the precise second through which silence stops being an possibility, as a result of silence turns into a type of violence towards oneself.

Born in Tehran 77 years in the past, Saniee belongs to a era that has seen Iran change its face a number of occasions in simply half a century. Before, throughout and after the Islamic Revolution, the author has noticed—and analyzed—the impression of political transformations on every day life, particularly that of ladies. For years she labored as a researcher, conducting social research and dealing with statistics to grasp human habits, however there got here a degree the place she discovered educational reviews inadequate: “I could have written a research report, like so many others I had written that only reached a limited audience, but the topic of women’s lives was different and deserved a deeper narrative,” she explains concerning the genesis of The e-book of my futurehis most acclaimed work, initially printed in 2003.

International ‘greatest vendor’

The novel, translated into 26 languages, tells the story of the younger Masumeh, is a portrait of life in Tehran from earlier than the 1979 revolution to this century and condenses the expertise of hundreds of Iranian ladies whose lives have been formed by exterior forces: household, faith, the State, public morality. Saniee constructed it by combining historic research, questionnaires and actual testimonies. “One of the most important cultural conflicts after the Revolution was the tension between religion and modernity,” he recollects, and explains that that’s the reason he determined that Masumeh was born in Qom, probably the most spiritual metropolis in Iran, and moved to Tehran, a logo of modernity. Even his title—which suggests “innocent”—is a political assertion: “There is no individual guilt in structural oppression.”

Throughout the novel, Masumeh’s life spans 5 a long time of Iranian historical past, exhibiting how private achievements may be annulled on the stroke of a pen by a regime change. “After the establishment of the Islamic Republic, many hard-won freedoms were taken away, forcing women to fight again for rights as basic as deciding how to dress,” explains Saniee, who recollects that this battle was not at all times seen. “In the early years of the Islamic Republic, women carried out activities in favor of freedom and helping those in need clandestinely, without public demonstrations,” she says. The resistance, then, was organized in homes, discreet associations, invisible networks. That private expertise emerges in an anecdote of her personal: shortly after the publication of her books, Saniee found that in a single month she had acquired invites from 18 ladies’s associations from totally different components of Iran “whose names she didn’t even know and, sometimes, she didn’t even know what cities they were from,” she recollects. Each go to stunned him by “the magnitude, perseverance and value of the work they did.” Those ladies, invisible to the official story, supported a community of assist and consciousness that undoubtedly explains, partly, the power of the present protests.

Imposed silence

And The e-book of my future It is a novel concerning the weight of historical past, a hidden voice It delves right into a extra intimate and psychological territory. Inspired by an actual case—the story of Shahab, a boy who decides to not converse—and initially printed in 2004, it really works as a robust metaphor for imposed silence. The kid’s mutism isn’t a incapacity, however a selection, a type of resistance towards rejection. For Saniee, this gesture connects instantly with the expertise of ladies in patriarchal societies: “In most traditional societies, the dominant culture is a form of patriarchy that not only does not tolerate dissent, but harshly represses and stifles it,” she says. Silence, on this context, is a survival technique. But it’s not everlasting: “There comes a point when silence becomes a deafening scream that no one can contain. Like what is happening today in my country.”

The protests that broke out after the demise of Mahsa Amini in 2022 marked a earlier than and after in Iran. Although they weren’t the primary mobilizations, they did present a deep generational rupture that continues till at the moment’s protests. Saniee observes this distinction with amazement: “The difference is so great and profound that it is hard to believe that so much change has occurred in just fifty years.” He attributes this acceleration to the digital world, the media and a youth that has misplaced worry. Compared to the Masumeh of her novel, compelled to barter each small area of freedom, at the moment’s younger ladies occupy public area with their our bodies and voices. In this course of, training occupies a central place within the author’s considering: “In my opinion, education is one of the most important tools to combat fanaticism and backwardness,” she maintains. And literature, for her, is a part of that expanded training: “It can put people in each other’s shoes, show different perspectives and generate the empathy necessary to resolve conflicts.”

Unfortunately, writing in Iran has a value: all books undergo censorship filters and lots of are outright banned. Saniee is aware of this effectively. His newest e-book has been blocked on the Ministry of Culture for 17 years with out receiving authorization to be printed. “The story of getting permission for my books would be enough to write another book,” he explains. Even so, he insists on persevering with writing. Leaving a report, he believes, is a type of long-term resistance: “It is a guide for future generations.” “I’m proud of them and I enjoy seeing them,” she says, when lastly requested what she would say to present protesters, particularly ladies. “I know how consciously and determinedly they move toward their goals and their freedom. I hope they succeed. And I hope they succeed.”