[This week’s article continues the interview Sheila did with writer Nahid Rachlin for the May, 2008 AWP Chronicle. Part one

Sheila
What advice do you have for those writing from painful political and family
backgrounds?

Nahid
My advice is that they should give themselves time to understand it all and not be in the state of grief with open wounds or anger before they attempt to write about such situations. Otherwise the tendency would be to just pour out words without sufficient shape for the reader. To be able to write effectively about a situation, it is better to be somewhat calm about it.

Sheila
Most often, and certainly in Persian Girls, your characters, whether oppressed or oppressors, do come off as individuals, fully drawn. What helps you find that dimensionality?

Nahid
In both my fiction and the memoir, I tried to understand my characters well — what makes them act and behave the way they do — that helps me become aware of all the dimensions of their characters. An example is the character of my father. I was afraid of him because of his authoritative nature and was angry that he made Maryam and Pari and myself suffer in one way or another. But after hearing certain exchanges between him and my brothers, I realized he was conscious of social issues, had the capacity to empathize — with workers being underpaid, for instance — and was capable of great generosity. So he had both a good and bad side. Or my aunt Maryam’s character. She was a staunchly observant Muslim and rigid in following Islam’s rules and yet she didn’t impose her set of beliefs on me. She let me go my own way.

Sheila
In Married to a Stranger, your protagonist is a woman who can’t believe her good fortune in marrying her teacher, a writer she admires. Once home in his city, she finds that he is carrying on a long-term affair with the wife of a doctor, who’d been his friend in college. The protagonist puts out a literary journal, gains confidence and wins a divorce from her
husband, including funds to start her new life. In your sister’s life, divorce was finally granted but with no funds and with the loss of her ability to see her baby son. The terrain for woman in Iran seems very slippery. Yet, many of your female characters want to return. In Foreigner, the married Iranian born American biologist protagonist visits her estranged family in Iran, locates her biological mother, and decides to stay because she feels at home and wants to awaken the self that connects with Iran.

Nahid
 Though these women come here to escape all the limitations and oppression in Iran, they begin to miss what they can’t find in this culture. There is the richness of certain sights and sounds unique to Iran — gurgling of water in joobs, the vendors selling hot beets and corn, roasted on braziers in front of them on sidewalks, the ancient historical sights, such as gardens, palaces, and mosques. There is the richness of human interaction. People have great curiosity about each other, which allows intimacy and closeness. Also the fact that men and women are forbidden to each other before marriage draws the members of the same sex closer to each other. People are less focused on work and don’t value privacy as much as people do here. They are more interested in endless daily interaction with family and friends. All day long people knock on friends’ and families’ doors and come in. Tea is always brewing on the top of samovars and fruit and pastries are on platters ready to serve to guests. Women sit together for hours and talk, confiding, sharing news. There is a sense that you can always reach out to friends and family members and their doors are wide open to you.

When I was attending a small, all-woman college in the U.S., I was shocked by the fact that the students would cancel plans with a girl friend, if a boy asked them out for the same time. They had such definite commitment to the idea of having dates with boys that their girl friends became secondary to them.

In my own case, that yearning for Iran is only abstract, in that I would never choose to live there. I feel that the oppressiveness of the system overwhelms all the advantages.

Sheila
By abstract do you mean something you can write about and feel but something you wouldn’t act on?

Nahid
That is right. I yearn for returning to Iran to experience the richness of the culture, but when I am there I become aware of all the limitations. The moment I am on the plane coming back to America, I feel a sense of relief and liberation. For instance, I can immediately take off the mandatory headscarf; more important, I can make critical remarks about the American government without the fear of being thrown into jail, as I would be if I openly criticized the Iranian government.

Sheila
Do you enjoy reminiscences of home as part of an ex-patriot group?

Nahid
Not really. I don’t have a community of Iranians around me and so I rarely have the chance to reminisce. The only time I do that is with some family members, such as cousins I was very close to as a child. Then we reminisce about our childhood experiences with nostalgia.

Sheila
I understand that leaving one’s homeland means great loss. I am wondering, though, how a woman might overcome fear of oppression to return for the sake of a relationship with family. I know from Persian Girls that you have made many trips back to Iran and discovered much about your family and the fate of so many loved ones. How do you muster the courage to enter a country that you have written has rules that change continually and rules that endanger a woman’s ability for legal recourse concerning her right to speak, be seen, and keep her own children?

Nahid
Each time I go for a visit I am apprehensive that I may be detained there and not be able to return to America. However, my desire to see certain loved ones enables me to overcome my fears and go there. I am willing to take the risk.

Sheila
Have you worried that your reputation as an author will endanger you?

Nahid
Yes, when I go to Iran for visits I am apprehensive that my writing could get me into trouble with authorities there. So far nothing like that has happened, but I feel it could. I am not sure if any of my work has been translated. Iran isn’t a part of international copyright agreements, so people can translate any book without asking permission from authors or their publishers. They do have to get permission from the censorship committee in Iran, to be able to publish any book there. I saw a little article in an Iranian newspaper about my novel Foreigner having been translated and published there but when I asked my friends to go and find it, no one could. So I am not sure what happened. If it was translated, I am sure a great deal of change was made in it in order to pass the censorship.

Sheila
Do government officials look for writing about Iran to translate? Do they do anything beyond just not translating work they feel is anathema?

Nahid
I am not sure about that. But I do know that individual people decide to translate certain books. They submit the translated versions to the authorities and a censorship committee decides if they can be published in Farsi. Sometimes the committee gives permission but only if the translator agrees to do a lot of cuts and changes, so that taboo subjects can be avoided. Under the Shah the censors were sensitive to anything that could be construed as a criticism of the government. The new regime is sensitive to that too, and, in addition, to anything they consider to be immoral. For instance, men and women can’t be described as kissing or holding hands. They can’t be shown drinking alcohol.

Sheila
When you write about the American wife Jennifer accompanying her son and husband to Iran, she is in trouble — her mother-in-law kidnaps the American born grandchild to have him attend religious instruction, her husband becomes easily swayed to spend the night with a prostitute, which is okay in male Islamic eyes since an aghound marries them for one night, and Jennifer is at one point jailed in a village because her makeshift chador falls away exposing her hair; later she is held captive by the Iranian doctor who helps her and doesn’t want her to leave for America. Does this portrayal of the Iranian culture draw criticism, not just by the Iranian government, but also by the average Iranian reader?

Nahid
Yes, Iranians coming to my readings after reading my books have told me they are very sensitive to the images of Iran and Iranian characters I convey. Some of them attack me verbally. They are very sensitive to their identity as Iranians, particularly since the hostage crisis and then 9/11 and so what they want from me as a writer is to give a positive picture. I can understand their sensitivity, but on the other hand, I am writing about what I perceive as truth. I think in all my books, there are both positive and negative aspects to the situations and characters I present, real to life. The characters in Heart’s Desire came to me, because I wanted to demonstrate how an American views the Iranian culture and how an Iranian views the American culture, how each deals with problems in cultures that aren’t their own. It fascinates me how people interpret cultural cues and situations. I also wanted to show how the husband in this novel, because he had felt prejudiced against in America during the hostage crisis, is eager to embrace his own culture, which he had left behind. He is even able to accept the temporary marriage to the woman (who isn’t really considered to be a prostitute because becoming a sigheh, marrying for a brief period of one hour, two hours or a few days, is sanctioned by the government as a way of avoiding prostitution).

Sheila
How has the experience of being a pioneer of Iranian American writing — a term which didn’t exist until very recently — both give you a niche as a writer and also perhaps peg you in a certain way? Are there advantages/disadvantages you see?

Nahid
The only advantage is that it makes it easier for others to reach to me for certain, specific reasons, finding out about Iran, or just another culture. The disadvantage is that people then come to expect certain things from my writing that may not be there. Having lived in the U.S. more than half of my life, I have created many American characters, and the Iranian characters I have created are painted with the somewhat objective eye of an “outsider.”

Sheila
How can someone tell if they might be better off writing fiction than a memoir? What are the differences to the writer?

Nahid
I always thought I preferred to write fiction so that I would have the freedom to base each character on a conglomerate of several characters and each situation on a combination of many incidents. I wouldn’t have that freedom in memoir. But at the same time, I began to have a desire to tell the story of my life and those of other women I grew up with as they were. It was like I had to tell it all and get it out of my system and to bring such situations to life for others. Another problem I anticipated about writing a memoir was that my family members wouldn’t agree with the way I viewed things. But then I decided to take that chance.

Sheila
One similarity I see in all of your work, fiction and nonfiction alike, is the sharing of Persian poetry among characters and the prominence of song lyrics they listen to, all incredibly romantic and incredibly inflammatory for woman in a culture that arranges marriages — sometimes of girls less than 10 years old. Though their destiny is in their father’s hands, the young girls you portray are very romantic and hopeful. The men they marry use romantic words to coerce them into thinking they will be well loved and cared for when they are later emotionally and mentally and sometimes physically abused. How do you explain romanticism in this culture?

Nahid
The ancient Iranian poets, such as Omar Khayaam, who still have a great deal of popularity there, weren’t influenced by the Muslim religion, which prohibits romance before marriage. In addition, Iran has always had Americans, English and other Westerners living there because of the oil business, and spreading their values. So people are aware of romance, falling in love, and they experience it, though they are forbidden to act on those feelings unless the object of their romance happens to be someone they will marry.

Sheila
Speaking of romance, Jumping Over Fire is a novel that’s stayed with me. The plight of a girl who falls in love with her adopted older brother and the ways in which their young adult lives moves me. How did this particular plot occur to you?

Nahid
In this novel, as in Heart’s Desire, I was interested to see how a girl like Nora, who views herself as an American copes in Iran and then how Jahan, so all-Iranian, copes in America when they emigrate with their parents to here. Nora, with her American looks and inclinations blends well in America, and Jahan is treated like a foreigner and is unhappy. Their situation was the reverse when they lived in Iran. I also wanted to show how a girl like Nora feels the limitation of the Iranian culture particularly when she is an adolescent. She has no freedom to go out with boys so her fantasies all get attached to her brother, and when she finds out he is adopted, something they didn’t know until he was fifteen and she fourteen, she can justify her attraction.

Sheila
I resonate with Nora, her honest nature, the agony of keeping a secret, the worry about her parents’ and her brother’s feelings, her desire to find the right life for herself, her ability to work hard. I think Nora and all of your female characters embody qualities and concerns all women are familiar with, though their lives may not have been as extreme as your characters’ when it comes to feeling foreign, having difficult family alliances, and having to bridge two cultures. When you bring a character to life in a book, what are you aware of in their nature? In the way it is going to be tested?

Nahid
I believe people aren’t aware of what they are capable of doing or not doing until they are put to the test. And so I put my characters in difficult situations and see how they will behave, how they survive and overcome obstacles. I never know the outcome myself until I have gone through several drafts. For instance, in Foreigner, Feri, the protagonist of the novel, doesn’t realize how much she had missed about her own culture until she actually returns to Iran. Only when she is there and is looking back at her life in America, that she realizes how sterile it was, how unhappy she was with her cold husband and her work. Iran is a place she had always wanted to get away from and come to the “free” America. But when in Iran, she realizes that the circumstances of her life in America made her a prisoner. By the end of the book she isn’t even sure if she wants to return to America. But the realization and awareness become possible because she is actually in Iran and is put to the test how she really feels and what she is capable of doing.

Sheila
Devising tests for your characters leads to plot and character development. What else helps you do that?

Nahid
Ideas come to me as I go about my life. I maybe taking a walk or looking out of the window and suddenly a solution comes to me about a character’s choices or directions and how to create scenes or a plot that would best represent the characters’ personalities and capabilities.

Sheila
Your stories are set against political events in Iran. How much research do you do? How much is staying in touch with events in Iran a part of your week?

Nahid
I do very little research just for the sake of my writing. I steadily read Iranian magazines and newspapers, as well as any news about Iran in American ones. I talk to Iranian friends and relatives who pass through New York. The Iranian newspapers and magazines report details, not just about the large political issues but also the daily events — certain publications closing down, others coming into existence, art exhibitions, movies and plays, restaurants opening up or closing, crime, prices of certain things going up. So I get glimpses into the texture of life there.

Sheila
Do you have advice for those writing fiction or memoir that involves knowledge of world events about how to keep the story from having too much exposition that might take the reader out of the story?

Nahid
I think character development should be the emphasis and the political situation should be in the background, used to the extent that that the characters’ actions, choices, decisions, can be put in context would make sense to the reader. For instance in Foreigner, I focus on Feri’s personal dilemma rather than the political situation around her in Iran or America. She has begun to sense certain sterility about the American way of life and sees Iran as a spiritually richer culture. People find out about world events in broad terms by reading or listening to news. Only in fiction or memoir do you have the chance to get into the complexities and nuances of a culture and people living in it.

Sheila
After reading your work, I see Iranian culture as complex, its people and families diverse in their ways of connecting with the dominant culture and the state of humanity. There is much sadness about how life turned out from the seventies to today. There is much contradiction in the way so many love worldly pleasures, others shun them and feel their values are compromised, and still others seem to have a foot in both worlds — not practicing religion but adhering to traditional roles for women and men. How do you think things are going now for the people of Iran?

Nahid
Most young Iranians are particularly unhappy about all the restrictions imposed on them — the widespread censorship of everything. There are few sources of entertainment for them — boys and girls aren’t allowed to mingle, to drink, to dance; nightclubs are closed down; most movies deal with limited subjects. What happens is that they are forced to lead an underground life — they obtain things from the black market and carry on many activities covertly. When I was visiting Iran last, three years ago, the young children of my relatives, watched American movies on videos, listened to American music on tapes, drank alcohol, all obtained from the black market, which is practically as large as the legal market. They went to parties with boys taking place in far away houses where the “moral” police weren’t as much on the look out. The more modernized older generation is also unhappy about some of those rules. But then there are people, the younger as well as the older generation, that approve of those restrictions because they are religious themselves and their values are similar to ones the government is imposing on people. Iran has always been a mingling of traditional and westernized, religious and non-religious, values that create contradictions and complexity.

Sheila
Based on what you know about Iran today, do you know more of the themes and/or topics you want to explore in fiction and nonfiction?

Nahid
For my next project, I am planning on writing a novel set in present day Iran. I will mainly focus on identical twin sisters and how their lives are affected and go in different directions as they reach adolescence and they have more complex interactions with the outside world. In it, I want to catch all the nuances of the “double” life people are forced to lead and what often tragic consequences it can have on people.

Sheila
Is it hard to begin something new after succeeding at finishing so many stories? How do you allow yourself to feel comfortable getting back to unknowns again?

Nahid
Writing is a necessity to me. I get depressed when I take too long a break from it. I am happiest when I can spend several hours a day writing. It is as if experiences don’t have full meaning unless I channel them into scenes in fiction or memoir.

Sheila
We haven’t discussed your teaching life. How does teaching affect your writing?

Nahid
I find it stimulating to be among students who have similar interests and questions. I also learn from them in that pointing out what works and doesn’t work in the pieces they hand in, helps me to look at my own writing the same way. I become a better editor of my own work because of teaching.

Sheila
Are there trends you are seeing in the work of today’s young writers that excite you? Any that irritate you?

Nahid
What excites me is to see students being willing to write openly and honestly about their experiences, not being afraid to reveal themselves. What irritates me, mostly when I teach at the undergraduate level is the limited range of the students’ preoccupations. They can be overly concerned in their writing with subjects like dating, grades and such matters. Older students have wider range of experiences and that reflects in what they choose to write about.

Sheila
Are there any words of advice you find yourself giving frequently?

Nahid
Yes. I tell students that they should write what they are passionate about rather than trying to calculate the market. I have found that calculations rarely work. If they write something that interests them, if it doesn’t get published, at least the process of writing it is more rewarding than writing something out of calculation that doesn’t get published.