Below is the link to my interview with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, published by The Bullet
بایگانی دسته: In English
Ideology, Anti-Colonialism and Marxism
Below is the link to my interview with Dr. Himani Bannerji, published by The Bullet
http://socialistproject.ca/bullet/1341.php
The Filmmaker as Graffiti Artist
My take on Keywan Karimi and Iranian “Cinema of the Excluded”, published by Global Voices
https://globalvoices.org/2016/11/04/irans-keywan-karimi-the-filmmaker-as-graffiti-artist/
Shahrzad and the 1953 Coup in Iran
My article: A TV Show for the Rouhani Era: Shahrzad and the 1953 Coup d’etat in Iran” published by Ajam:
“‘History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake,” wrote James Joyce in Ulysses. The US-sponsored Coup of 1953 is such an event: a “nightmare” in Iranian contemporary history. It is widely depicted as a rupture in the modern history of Iran. It is also a Pandora’s box filled with contested narratives. The proliferation of narratives on the coup in recent years clearly shows that it is time for Iranians to awake from “this nightmare,” especially as the Nuclear Deal signals a new phase in Iran-US relations. The following discusses in what sense and to what ends Shahrzad, the most popular Iranian television series of the last year, has contributed to this “awakening.”
ٍEntry on Bijan Elahi
My entry on “Bijan Elahi” published in Encyclopaedia Iranica
History of the Equals
My Interview with Professor Peter Linebaugh published by the Bullet, accessible at the link below:
A review of Alireza Gholami’s the Wall
“The Wall” by Alireza Gholami, is the story of a 14 years old boy who is unable but to read and interpret the ideology of Iran-Iraq war in a “literal” manner. This story with its grotesque yet comic narration, reminds the reader of both Emile Habibi’s “The secret life of Saeed the pessoptomist” and Jaroslav Hasek’s ” The good soldier Svejik”. In a course of one day, the protagonist loses his brother, his mother, his friend, and at last, while searching for a prostitute, is mistakenly arrested and condemned as a counterrevolutionary. Like Camus’ Meursault, the boy in “the Wall” has no power but to nourish his hatred toward the world, however his estrangement is not the result of his inclination to absurd philosophy. The novel develops the idea that in certain historical moments in the discourse of an ideological system, the literal interpretation will become dominant; the interpretation which will result to eventual injustice even for those who have tried their best to remain “ideologically innocent”.
Dostoyevsky and the Unknown thing
My criticism on “20th of November”, directed by Brendan Healy, played by Gilani. Click on the link:
http://buddiesinbadtimes.com/blog/will-i-come-out-alive/
Translation of a few Lickos
Licko is the haiku of South west of Iran. Similar to Haiku, they too are mostly about a moment, a sense, a feeling, an arbitrary nature. They are mood poems. The nature in this part of Iran is mostly dry.
Beside the bitter-water well
A girl in chador is asleep
—-
I am sitting beside a dry river
Waiting for the black hair beloved
—-
I have put on your chador
I can’t stand without you
—-
You can’t force a friendship
From one valley to the other
—
I am distracting myself
You can come out collect your cloth
—-
You are sitting beside the pool
What did I say that made you mad?
….
Translated from the Farsi collection edited by Mansur Alimoradi
The Red Intellect by Bijan Elahi
Poem: Bijan Elahi
Trans: Mehdi Ganjavi
————-
The Red Intellect
–
Why should I travel? Why
Should I travel?
I, who can bewilder,
Years around my house
–
Home: my longing- because
I am out of it-
The house, which appears in the light
appears on the peak of light…
The known bird
swallows out of kindness
-The Adam’s apple
moves for a second-
then its eyes
bring forgetfulness.