"Green Sour Orange" . A Short Story by Nada Kavoosifor - July 2013 - translated from Persian by Sara Khalili

Short Stories from Iran's Post Revolutionary Generation

From Words Without Borders

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

"in Transit" - A Short Story by Mavis Gallant - 1989

Buried in Print's Mavis Gallant Project

"In Transit" - A Short Story by Mavis Gallant - the title story in her 1998 Collection

This post is written in hope that Mass will once again be offered at Norte Dame Cathedral on Christmas Day in 2020

"In Transit" is set in the Helsinki  airport.  Of course one's experience now will vary depending  on the airport, since 1989 some airports like Singapore's are truly winderful and others thirty years past due for renovation.  One can assume the 1989 Helsinki Airport was strictly functional.

In airports people tend to project  onto strangers, to help pass the time.  There are two couples in our story, a newly married French couple, maybe 27 or so and a couple identified as Americans from their accents.  The French man is working on a series of articles for a Paris newspaper.  He understands English but hides this so he can ease drop.  Maybe journalism is just a code  name for superficial observations meant for newspaper readers.

The American couple are continuing what the Frenchman sees as a life time quarell about the nature of their relationship:

"The wild thoughts of the younger man were: They are chained for the rest of this life. Too old to change? Only a brute would leave her now? They are walking toward the door marked AMSTERDAM, and she limps. That is why they cannot separate. She is an invalid. He has been looking after her for years. They are going through the Amsterdam door, whatever their tickets said."

I imagine the Frenchman is wondering if they are his future.  He and his wife have already started what looks life a life time issue over why he left his first wife.

Is it just me or does Gallant often portray Americans in a one-demensional way?

Of course the young Frenchman might be totally wrong about the older couple.  

Mel u

Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir by Ruth Reichl - 2019

Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir by Ruth Reichl - 2019

I grew up with Gourmet in the house, from  as young as I can recall. My mother loved the magazine and had a subscription for many years. When she passed away I did not renew the subscription and Gourmet called and offered to  renew for life for free, concerned over her failure to renew. This is a gesture of a bygone era.  I always looked through the magazine.  The recipes seemed very complicated, the photography was magnificent and the travel articles helped motivate me to eventually travel the world, always studying the food of any new place and researching interesting restaurants. Gourmet is now sadly out of business.

I knew I had to read Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir by Ruth Reichl as soon as Amazon suggested it to me.  I added it to my wish list and last week when the Kindle edition was put on sale for $2.95, now back up to $13.95, I happily hit "acquire now".

Ruth Reichl,long time restaurant critic for The Los Angeles Times and a leading American food writer, in her New York Times best selling book, tells us the history of Gourmet, taking us behind the scenes, into their test kitchen, and details the business side of food magazines.  Gourmet was by far the "classiest" food magazine.  There was big money  funding for the magazine from Conde Nash publishing, for many years, the owner had huge inherited wealth and was most focused on quality publications.

Reichl tells us about her shocked reaction when Gourmet offered her the job of editor, at six times her then salary.  It meant she 
as well as her husband and son would have to relocate to New York City. She had carte blanche to replace anyone on the staff of sixty.  The details of her first encounter with her staff are fun to read. The atmosphere can be described fairly described as very elitist, socially snobish (think of the movie,The Devil Wears Prada).  

Everyone Reichl describes seems very wealthy, privileged from birth.  I hate to say this as maybe it is not fair to all, but they did sound like Mar A  Logo members sometimes. 

There were scenes I really liked.  Her description of her visit to 
Paris was a master work.  She opens up about her challenges as a working mother.  She offers us several elegant recipes.  

I endorse this book for all who loved Gourmet Magazine.

"Ruth Reichl is the author of My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life, a cookbook published in September 2015.  She was Editor in Chief of Gourmet Magazine from 1999 to 2009. Before that she was the restaurant critic of both The New York Times (1993-1999) and the Los Angeles Times (1984-1993), where she was also named food editor. As co-owner of The Swallow Restaurant from 1974 to 1977, she played a part in the culinary revolution that took place in Berkeley, California. In the years that followed, she served as restaurant critic for New West and California magazines.
Ms. Reichl began writing about food in 1972, when she published Mmmmm: A Feastiary. Since then, she has authored the critically acclaimed, best-selling memoirs Tender at the Bone, Comfort Me with Apples, Garlic and Sapphires, and For You Mom, Finally, which have been translated into 18 languages. In 2014 she published her first novel: Delicious!
Ms. Reichl hosted Eating Out Loud, three specials on Food Network, covering New York (2002), San Francisco (2003), and Miami (2003). She is the executive producer of Gourmet’s Diary of a Foodie, public television’s 30-episode series, which debuted in October 2006 and Executive Producer and host of Gourmet’s Adventures with Ruth, a 10-episode public television (2009.) She was also a judge on Top Chef Masters.
Ms. Reichl has been honored with 6 James Beard Awards (one for magazine feature writing and one for multimedia food journalism in 2009; two for restaurant criticism, in 1996 and 1998; one for journalism, in 1994; and Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America, 1984. In 2007, she was named Adweek’s Editor of the Year. She received the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism, presented by the Missouri School of Journalism, in October 2007. Ms. Reichl received the 2008 Matrix Award for Magazines from New York Women in Communications, Inc., in April 2008. She holds a B.A. and an M.A. in the History of Art from the University of Michigan and lives in Upstate New York with her husband, Michael Singer, a television news producer." From ruthreichl.com

2019 Year End Reading Life Review

writers from various countries, based on a count of posts

1. USA - 44
2. UK - 16
3. Ireland - 15
4. Poland - 11
5. Japan - 10
6. Canada - 8
7. India - 8
8. France - 7
9. Belarus - 5
10. Germany - 3
11. Russia - 4
12. Ukraine - 2
13. Singapore - 2
14. Vietnam - 2
15. Argentina - 1
16. Lithuania - 1
17. Australia - 1
18. Malaysia - 2
19. Austria - 1

There were 110 posts on works by women, 67 by men

There were 101 posts on living writers, 63 dead

Blog stats for 2019

Top Home countries of visitors in 2019

1. USA
2. The Philippines
3. India
4. Russia
5. UK
6. Ukraine
7. Germany
8. Canada

Posts currently on line - 3653

Pageviews since inception - 5,904,651

The five most read posts of the year were all on short stories.
Two were on authors from the Philippines, two from India, and one from Indonesia.


I offer my great thanks to Max u for the provision of Amazon Gift Cards

To those who take the time to leave comments, you help keep me going.

In a few days I will do a post in observation of completing a decade of blogging.  I will there talk of my future hopes and plans for The Reading Life

Mel u

Cross Creek by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings - 1942

A post in honour of the birth anniversary of my mother, January 3, 1921-No finer Floridian ever lived.

Florida Timeline

8000 BC - First Native American settlement, near Sarasota

1000 AD - there are nine distinct tribes 

1500 - estimated population of the state was 375,000- 150,000 speak Timuca

April 2, 1513 - Ponce de Leon lands somewhere between Melbourne and Jacksonville.  In time the  indigenous population will be reduced to near zero, from disease and warfare. 

1521 - first colony, from Spain, near St. Augustine

1579 - The cultivation of oranges, introduced from Spain begins.  By 1835 millions of oranges were being shipped north and to Europe, for the next hundred years oranges, cattle and timber were the major sources of cash

1624 - First African American born, in St. Augustine

1763 to 1765- England Owns west Florida panhandle area

Based on research by others in the family and history, I conjecture my maternal ancestors first entered Florida, coming from. Georgia where they arrived around 1650, about 1815.


1808 - importation of slaves into USA is banned, a very large trade in slaves smuggled in from Cuba begins 

1821 - USA acquired Florida from Spain.  

1822 - Tallahassee is chosen as the territory capital, being half way between the then major population centers of St. Augustine and Pensacola

1835 Second Seminole War begins, by 1842 most Seminoles were shipped west but some escaped into the Everglades.  The 
make up of the Seminoles was largely not Native originally to Florida but a mixture of escaped slaves and Creeks from Georgia and South Carolina.


March 3, 1845 - Florida becomes a state, slavery legal.

1859 - by the end of the third Seminole War the around four hundred survivors retreat to the Everglades


Population of Florida 1861. - 154,494 - 92,741 Free, 61,75 enslaved

January 10, 1861 Florida suceeds from The Union.  Per capita, Florida sent The most men into war, 15000.  It was then the  least populated southern state.

1896- Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, born in Washington,DC.  She wins the 1939 Pulitzer Prize for The Yearling, set in Rural north Florida.In 1928 she moves to Hawthorne, Florida.  She died December 14, 1953.  She is the author of Cross Creek.

,
. 1898 - lead by Theodore Roosevelt, based in Florida, the Rough Riders invade Cuba as part of the Spainish American war.  Through this the USA acquired the Philippines and took a place as a world class international power.  This helped him become president just as Zachary Taylor's role in the Seminole Wars did for Taylor.

1914 - World War One begins

January 3, 1921 - my Mother was born in Highsprings Florida, then population 1795. 

Population of Florida 1921 - 997,000
Population of Texas 4.8 Million
Population of California 3.75 million

Last January, in consultation with Max u, it was decided that there will be an annual post in observation of the birth anniversary of our Mother.  This year I selected Cross Creek by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author of The Yearling set in rural north Florida in the 1920s.  I saw the setting was very much like my mother's birthplace
in Highsprings, Florida, which motivated my choice. I found this book quite disappointing.  It has no real plot,the African American characters are condescending racist charactures.  The descriptions of natural beauty were wonderful, the only thing that gives this book value. 

My 2019 Non- Fiction Reads - Includes Five Best

My 2019 Non-Fiction Reading List

1. Sea People - The Puzzle of Polynesia by Christina Thompson, 2019, 362 pages -"From the very start I loved this marvelous book.  It is the epitome of the very best narrative non-fiction"
2. At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails by Sarah Bakewell. -2016 "As I read though this much admired book I recalled works I read in the long long ago.  For sure I would recommend At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails by Sarah Bakewell to anyone wanting to learn about Existentialism.  When I last read these works I did not know the  God father of Existentialism, Martin Heidigger was an active supporter of Nazism and admired Hitler.  This gives me serious pause to wonder what this may reveal about the movement."

3. Late Victoria Holocausts by Mike Davis - 2002. An eye opening work
4. Bury Me Standing The Gypsies and Their Journey by Isabel Fonseca.  The best book on the Roma
5. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow 
6. George Washington A Biography by Ron Chernow
7. J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys: The Real Story Behind Peter Pan by Andrew Birkin - 1979 with a new introduction by the author in the 2003 Yale University Press Edition. A pure delight
8. Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist by Anne Boyd Rioux - 2016. Essential reading for all seriously into American Literature
9. Wilde's Women: How Oscar Wilde Was Shaped by the Women He Knew by Eleanor Fitzsimons - 2015.  If you love Oscar Wilde, then this is a book for you
10. A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France and The Birth of America by Stacy Schiff, 2005,528 pages. An early American essential
11. The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple -2019 - 520 pages
12. The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave Breeding Industry by Ned and Constance Sublette - 2015 - 752 pages.  A great book. Must reading
13. Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser - September, 2019. A first rate literary biography- 
14. The American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph. Ellis -1997- considered one of the top 100 books on The American Revolution.
15. A People’s History of the American Revolution - How Common People Shaped and Fought for Independence by Ray Raphael - 2001.  A must for American Revolutionary era buffs
16. A Rich Brew How Cafés Created Modern Jewish Culture by Shachar Pinsker - 2019.  A valuable Ashkenazi culture work. Anyone into Yiddish Literature Will love this book
17. War at the End of the World: Douglas MacArthur and the Forgotten Fight For New Guinea, 1942-1945  by James P Duffy - 2016 - p 488. Vital work on W W Two in the Pacific
18. The Montreal Shtetl- Making Home After the Holocaust by Zelda Abramson and John Lynch - 2019
19. The Montreal Shtetl- Making Home After the Holocaust by Zelda Abramson and John Lynch is a groundbreaking essential work, both for content and methodology.  It is a study of the immigration of Eastern European Jews into Montreal and their integration into Canadian society, after the Holocaust
20. City of Rogues and Schnorrers: Russia’s Jews and the Myth of Old Odessa by Jarrod Tanney - 2011- 288 pages
21. Dear Mendl, Dear Reyzl - Yiddish Letter Manuals from Russia and America by Alice Nakhimovsky and Roberta Newman, 2014, 248 pages, Indiana University Press.  A pioneering work
22. Yiddish Empire: The Vilna Troupe,Jewish Theater and The Art of Itinerancy by Debra Caplan - 2019. An important work of Theatrical History
23. Wild Heart Natalie Clifford Barney and the Decadence of Literary Paris by Suzanne Rodriguez - 2002. A delightful book focusing on legendary literary lesbians
24. Suzanne's Children - A Daring Rescue in Nazi Paris by Anne Nelson - 2017 - 336 Pages
25. A Roll of the Dice - A Story of Love, Loss, and Genetics by Mona Dash - 2019.a very informative and moving memoir
26. The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit by Eleanor Fitzsimons- October, 2019- prize winning biography of an important writer
27. Becoming Soviet Jews: The Bolshevik Experiment in Minsk by Elissa Bemporad - 2013
28. Rush: Revolution, Madness and The Visionary Doctor Who Became A Founding Father by Stephen Fried - 2018 

About half these books I received as review copies.


My top five Narrative Nonfiction Works for 2019


1. Sea People - The Puzzle of Polynesia by Christina Thompson, 2019, 362 pages -"From the very start I loved this marvelous book.  It is the epitome of the very best narrative non-fiction
2. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow.  
3. The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave Breeding Industry by Ned and Constance Sublette - 2015 - 752 pages.  A great book. If you read only one, this is my top nonfiction work for 2019.
4. J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys: The Real Story Behind Peter Pan by Andrew Birkin - 1979 with a new introduction by the author in the 2003 Yale University Press Edition. A pure delight
5. Late Victoria Holocausts by Mike Davis - 2002. An eye opening work

I have posted on all these works on my blog.

Please share with us your best narrative non.fiction from 2019

The Reading Life Review - December - 2019

December Authors

Column One

1. Mendel Moykher-Sforim. - Belarus - very influential Yiddish writer
2. James Duffy. - USA - World War Two Historian
3. Voltaire - France

Column Two

1. Amanthi Harris - Sri Lanka - UK - Author Beautiful Place, visual artist.  Frequently featured on The Reading Life
2. Ray Raphael - USA - prolific historian of The American Revolution
3. Ned and Constance Sublette - USA - authors of The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave Breeding Industry

Column Three

1. Joseph Ellis - USA - Pulitzer Prize Winning American Revolution historian
2. Aline Bronosky - Russia - Germany - very talented novelist
3. Elaine Chiew - Malaysia - Singapore - author The Heartsick Diaspora, I hope to follow her work for many years
4. Julie Orringer - USA - author of The Flight Portfolio, I read this month her short story "Can You Feel This?" But I did not post about it.?

Column Four

1. Shachar Pinsker - USA - historian of modern Jewish literature
2. Stephen Fried - USA - American Revolution era historian
3. Benjamin Moser - USA - author of biographies of Clarice Lispector and Susan Sontag
4. Rebecca Lloyd - UK - author of The Child Cephalina, a delightful Gothic ghost story set in London in the 1850s

Home Countries of Authors

1. USA - 10
2. Sri Lanka - 1
3. Russia - 1
4. Malaysia - 1
5. UK - 1
6. Belarus -1

I featured works by six women and nine men, two of the writers for December are deceased.  Nine were featured for the first time.

Blog Stats

There are 3652 posted online. The Reading Life has had 5,904,504 page views

Home Countries of Blog Visitors

1. USA
2. India
3. The Philippines
4. Indonesia
5. Russia
6. UK
7. Germany
8. Ukraine
9. Mexico

The five most viewed posts were all on short stories, two by authors from India, two from The Philippines and "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allen Poe.

We added numerous images to my side bar to illustrate our reading plans.

There will soon be a year end posting giving more details