Hard times not yet over in Iran: Sahar Delijani

Why did you bring in the image of the jacaranda tree which is not native to Iran?
The jacaranda tree is a utopian image for me. It is about everything that the revolution was supposed to become and didn't. When my family went to the streets to overthrow the Shah, they probably thought their revolution was going to be a beautiful tree with beautiful flowers, but unfortunately it did not turn out to be what they had imagined.

Azar, the pregnant activist who gives birth in Evin prison, was inspired by your mom's own story. How easy or tough was it to coax her to open up and tell you everything?
It was very hard for my mother to talk about it. She has been clearly traumatised by her experience, and now that I think about it, I think the only reason she told the story was because she did not want to say no to me. It took a few sessions before she finally told me the entire story, or at least what I think is the entire story.

How tough was it putting into words the struggle of the children reuniting with mothers they did not even know because of being separated?
This is an issue that I'm immensely interested in. Not necessarily because I went through it myself. I was quite young when my parents were released and don't remember much of those early years. But because I have always found something mysterious in parent-child relationship, how it develops, why it means what it means for us as individuals and as a society. Hence it is fascinating to me to try to explore this same relationship being built almost artificially, due to the separation, and how successful or a failed an attempt that could be.

The way Sheida discovers her father's death in jail in the book is very moving. Is that based on your own experience of learning about your uncle who was executed?
My story is very different from Sheida's. In my family, there was a tendency to talk about what had happened in prison. In Sheida's family, there isn't. But I was aware that there many families like Sheida's who did not wish to talk about the past, who did not like to open up. That is why I decided to write about them, those who liked to remember as well as those who didn't.

Many characters in your book are unaware of their parents' struggle to begin with. Is that largely the reality about a lot of Iranians?
Unfortunately, there are many people who still do not know what happened in Iranian prisons in those years after the revolution. I meet them all the time. People who tell me that they had no idea what was happening in Iran's prisons.

Don't you think this denial could also be an effort at blocking out what must clearly be very disturbingly unpleasant?
Yes, perhaps partly. It is always easier to forget than to remember. Hard times are not yet over in Iran. Fear, intimidations, prison, repression, all continue to make part of the lives of Iranians and that is a fundamental fact that we should not forget. So maybe for Iranians, it all feels like a perpetual past re-presenting itself in different forms.

Is the book freely available in Iran? How has it been received?
It will be available online for Iranians in Iran in a few months. But so far, those who have had access to the English one have been very kind. I received many messages of people thanking me for telling these stories!
Many see your book in the same league as works like The Kite Runner, In the Shadow of the Banyan Tree. Did the work of any specific writers influence you?
Not particularly.

You've been writing for six-seven years before the novel. Is most of your writing about what happened to you and your family because of the terrible circumstances unfolding in Iran?
Actually no. In the beginning I wrote about anything but my personal history. That was a time when I thought to be a writer, one has to invent a story, not to simply tell it well. But I do think that I had these family stories in me for a long time. I think I just needed to prepare myself as a writer before telling it.

Right now the Persian Gulf is a boiling headline-grabbing cauldron. Will you continue to base your work out of Iran in the changing circumstances?
I live in Italy, and I will continue to write out of Iran about Iran.

Have you spent a lot of time in Iran? Many feel it has begun to change
I have not been to Iran since the publication of my book, but before that I would go quite often. Naturally, the country changes quite rapidly. With such a young population and due to the geopolitical sensitivity of the country itself, changes are inevitable. But I do have the impression that inside the country, there has not been such a major change when it has to do with freedom of expression of any kind for instance. Nevertheless, the Iranian society has changed a lot since the 1990s when I was living there. It is more open, more in touch with the world, more resilient and in some ways maybe even more frustrated because now that my generation has grown, entering its twenties and thirties, it is increasingly difficult for them to put up with the unceasing limits that the regime imposes upon them.

Iran, the West in general and the US in particular, seem ready to engage once again. Do you see this as mere geo strategy or is there more to this engagement?
I certainly hope there is more!