July 2013
Neda Kavoosifar, born in 1971, is a radiation therapist and a graduate of Shiraz University Medical School. She started writing fiction as an occasional pursuit in 1993 and a decade later decided to pursue it professionally. Her first work, a novella for young adults titled Three On a Bicycle: Me, Monkey and Father, was published in 2009 and received the Gaam-e Aval Award for best work of fiction. In 2010, her collection of short stories, Sleeping with Open Eyes, won the Golshiri Foundation Award, the Haft Eghlim Prize, and received a commendation from the Mehregan Adab Award. .from Words Without Borders, July 2013
"Green Sour Orange" - A Short Story by Neda Kavoosifor - translated from Persian by Sara Khalili - 2013
There are 52 world heritage sites in Iran. In retaliation for the 52 American hostages taken by the Irainian government in 1971, the current president of the United States has issued a threat to destroy many, maybe all of these sites. These sites are part of the collective heritage of mankind. The biggest number of victims would be people not yet born in 1971, more than half of Iranians.
I am beginning a mini-project spotlighting short stories by Irainian women. The stories were all originally written in Persian. Persian is at least a thousand years older than English and is spoken by about 110 million people. I know readers and authors of short stories are all repulsed by these threats. My blog is my forum to try to show what might be loss, it is my only way of speaking out. It is my effort to show the humanity of potential innocent victims.
"Sour Green Orange", is told in the first person by a young woman just beginning to work as a technician in a Tehran hospital. She stops to look at notices on a wall and sees an obituary for Mr. Moadab.
Mr. Moadab sexually abused her with his hand when she was ten. Her mother sent her to his haberdashery shop to get a red ribbon.
Throughout her day she has involuntary memories of this event, she cannot get the sensation of blood and urine flowing down her leg from her mind. She tries to force it back in her consciousness but it continues to intrude.
Kavoosifor gives us a glimpse of what working in a Tehran hospital is lime. The narrator cannot stop imagining blood and urine flowing down her leg as she makes her hospital rounds. It appears she never has told anyone about this incident. She makes no mention of a husband and we can only wonder how this decades old molestation will impact her life.
"I close my textbook. I think about the icosahedron cell that somewhere in my veins is circulating among the red and white blood cells, in plasma or diluted in platelets, so that one day or one night, in a matter of three seconds it can multiply into two, four, sixteen, and infinite deadly cells.
I take the announcement of Mr. Moadab’s death out of my handbag and I lay it open on the desk. I color his eyes with a red pen and draw a large X across his face. But the patriarch of the Moadab dynasty still ogles me with a vulgar sneer on his face. I purse my lips, look around, and with all my might I spit at his smirk that is now hanging over the edge of the desk. Saliva streams down his lips and wets my feet"
Soon I hope to post on stories by Payima Mojavezi and Behnaz Alpour Gaskari. Additionally I will post on a story by a writer that reminds me very much of Mavis Gallant, both left their birth countries to move to Paris, Goli Taraghi.
"Sara Khalili is an editor and translator of contemporary Iranian literature. Her translations include Censoring an Iranian Love Story by Shahriar Mandanipour, The Book of Fate by Parinoush Saniee, Kissing the Sword: A Prison Memoir by Shahrnush Parsipur, and the forthcoming Pomegranate Lady and Her Sons by Goli Taraghi. She has also translated several volumes of poetry by Forough Farrokhzad, Simin Behbahani, Siavash Kasraii, and Fereydoon Moshiri. Her translations of Mandanipour’s short stories have appeared in the Literary Review, the Kenyon Review, the Virginia Quarterly Review, EPOCH, Words without Borders, and PEN America." From Words Without Borders
Mel u
"Green Sour Orange" - A Short Story by Neda Kavoosifor - translated from Persian by Sara Khalili - 2013
There are 52 world heritage sites in Iran. In retaliation for the 52 American hostages taken by the Irainian government in 1971, the current president of the United States has issued a threat to destroy many, maybe all of these sites. These sites are part of the collective heritage of mankind. The biggest number of victims would be people not yet born in 1971, more than half of Iranians.
I am beginning a mini-project spotlighting short stories by Irainian women. The stories were all originally written in Persian. Persian is at least a thousand years older than English and is spoken by about 110 million people. I know readers and authors of short stories are all repulsed by these threats. My blog is my forum to try to show what might be loss, it is my only way of speaking out. It is my effort to show the humanity of potential innocent victims.
"Sour Green Orange", is told in the first person by a young woman just beginning to work as a technician in a Tehran hospital. She stops to look at notices on a wall and sees an obituary for Mr. Moadab.
Mr. Moadab sexually abused her with his hand when she was ten. Her mother sent her to his haberdashery shop to get a red ribbon.
Throughout her day she has involuntary memories of this event, she cannot get the sensation of blood and urine flowing down her leg from her mind. She tries to force it back in her consciousness but it continues to intrude.
Kavoosifor gives us a glimpse of what working in a Tehran hospital is lime. The narrator cannot stop imagining blood and urine flowing down her leg as she makes her hospital rounds. It appears she never has told anyone about this incident. She makes no mention of a husband and we can only wonder how this decades old molestation will impact her life.
"I close my textbook. I think about the icosahedron cell that somewhere in my veins is circulating among the red and white blood cells, in plasma or diluted in platelets, so that one day or one night, in a matter of three seconds it can multiply into two, four, sixteen, and infinite deadly cells.
I take the announcement of Mr. Moadab’s death out of my handbag and I lay it open on the desk. I color his eyes with a red pen and draw a large X across his face. But the patriarch of the Moadab dynasty still ogles me with a vulgar sneer on his face. I purse my lips, look around, and with all my might I spit at his smirk that is now hanging over the edge of the desk. Saliva streams down his lips and wets my feet"
Soon I hope to post on stories by Payima Mojavezi and Behnaz Alpour Gaskari. Additionally I will post on a story by a writer that reminds me very much of Mavis Gallant, both left their birth countries to move to Paris, Goli Taraghi.
"Sara Khalili is an editor and translator of contemporary Iranian literature. Her translations include Censoring an Iranian Love Story by Shahriar Mandanipour, The Book of Fate by Parinoush Saniee, Kissing the Sword: A Prison Memoir by Shahrnush Parsipur, and the forthcoming Pomegranate Lady and Her Sons by Goli Taraghi. She has also translated several volumes of poetry by Forough Farrokhzad, Simin Behbahani, Siavash Kasraii, and Fereydoon Moshiri. Her translations of Mandanipour’s short stories have appeared in the Literary Review, the Kenyon Review, the Virginia Quarterly Review, EPOCH, Words without Borders, and PEN America." From Words Without Borders
Mel u
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