Talk with the author Shida Bazyar
Moderated by Agnès Gruda, writer and journalist for La Presse, followed by a reading.
In English and German with consecutive translation to French.
Les Nuits sont calmes à Téhéran
| © Slatkine et Compagnie
Four family members, four decades, four memorable voices. Stirringly and poignantly, Shida Bazyar tells a story that begins in 1979 in Teheran and reaches all the way to contemporary Germany.
1979, after the expulsion of the Shah, Behsad, a young communist revolutionist, is fighting for a new order. Behsad talks about clandestine activities, sparks striking hope and about finding the love of his life in Nahid, who is obsessed with literature.
In 1989, ten years later in the German province: Behsad und Nahid fled with their children after the takeover of the mullahs. Hour after hour, they listen to the radio and hope for news of their friends, who had to go underground. They desperately want to return to their home country, yet, at the same time, are searching to make a home for themselves in Germany.
In 1999, their daughter Laleh travels with her mother to Teheran. Between “Kafishaps”, beauty rituals and whispered secrets, she gets to know a country that barely resembles her childhood memories.
A decade later, her brother Mo is amused by the pseudo engaged demonstrations of German students. But then the Green Revolution in Teheran turns his world upside down.
Shida Bazyar
born in 1988 in Hermeskeil, studied Literary Writing before moving to Berlin where she began a “double life”: Part of her time she spends working as a youth educational consultant in Brandenburg, the remaining time she is an author, writing short stories for magazines and anthologies. She was a fellow at the Klagenfurter Literaturkurs in 2012 and the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung. Her debut novel was honored with several German literature awards.
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