Like those pilgrims, we can be enriched by seeking words for the inexpressible and expanding our view onto unfamiliar people and different worlds. We have today the same need to not just look at, but to truly see the struggles of those seeking justice and also to celebrate those who, like Forugh, show us the enduring importance of the arts to a thoughtful, free, and deeply felt life. “Remember its flight,” Forugh famously wrote, “for the bird is mortal.” My hope is that Forugh’s story in Song of a Captive Bird will inspire and embolden readers, conjuring something of the magic that came with me from Iran to America in two maroon leather suitcases so many years ago.
ADDITIONAL READING AND VIEWING
Reborn and Other Poems. Forugh Farrokhzad. Trans. Hassan Javadi and Susan Sallee. Washington, D.C.: Mage, 2013.
Bride of the Acacias, Forugh Farrokhzad. Trans. Amin Banani and Jascha Kessler. Delmar, NY: Caravan, 1982.
The House Is Black, Forugh Farrokhzad. Golestan Studios, 1962.
Sin: Selected Poems of Forugh Farrokhzad, Forugh Farrokhzad. Trans. Sholeh Wolpe. Fayetteville, AK: Univ. of Arkansas Press, 2007.
A Lonely Woman: Forugh Farrokhzad and Her Poetry, Michael C. Hillmann. Washington, D.C.: Mage, 1987.
Veils and Words: The Emerging Voices of Iranian Women, Farzaneh M. Milani. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse Univ. Press, 1992.
“Icarus Reborn: Captivity and Flight in the Work of Forugh Farrokhzad,” in Words, Not Swords: Iranian Women Writers and the Freedom of Movement. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse Univ. Press, 2011.
Mirror of the Soul: The Forugh Farrokhzad Trilogy, dir. Nasser Saffarian. 2002–2004.
For Kiyan and Sean
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Mary Karr once quipped that the best part of writing is the company, and I agree. Writing this novel has put me in the company of some of the most gracious and brilliant people I have ever known, and my gratitude to them is endless.
For the woman she was, the poems she wrote, and the legacy she left, thank you, first and foremost, to Forugh Farrokhzad.
My agent, Sandy Dijkstra, cheered me on from the moment I first mentioned the idea of writing about Forugh. Her tenacity and dedication astonish me. Both she and the wonderful Elise Capron read endless drafts of this novel over several years. Andra Miller, my editor, embraced Forugh’s story with love, enthusiasm, and unflagging attention. She has been my dream editor.
Enormously useful to my understanding of Forugh’s life, work, and times was Michael C. Hillmann’s A Lonely Woman: Forugh Farrokhzad and Her Poetry. I was honored to participate in the conference Professor Hillmann organized at the University of Texas, Austin, in February 2017 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Forugh’s death. The presentations and conversations of that day expanded my knowledge and deepened my appreciation of Forugh’s exceptional body of work. I am also grateful to Farzaneh Milani, who has written about Forugh with great insight and eloquence. Forty years in the making, Dr. Milani’s literary biography of Forugh has recently been released in Iran. An English translation will be a tremendous gift to American readers, and I eagerly await its publication.
My former Washington and Lee colleagues Suzanne Parker Keen and Lesley Wheeler continue to inspire me not only with their devotion to teaching, writing, and scholarship, but their all-around excellence as human beings. Early drafts of Song of a Captive Bird were supported by several summer research grants from W&L as well as a sabbatical leave. A fellowship at the Virginia Foundation of the Humanities and a “Rising Star” Outstanding Faculty Award from Virginia’s State Council for Higher Education allowed me periods of uninterrupted time to research and write this novel. My residency at Yaddo was a dream come true, not least for the many gifted artists and writers I met during my time there. I owe thanks also to the many mentors and friends I met at the Bennington Writing Seminars: Amy Hempel, Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Alice Mattison, and Askold Melnyzuk.
For more than forty years Elaine Petrocelli and her crew at Book Passage Bookstore in Northern California have been creating one of the most vibrant literary communities in the country, and I am grateful to have this exceptional place as my home ground. As a teenager I used to get lost in the store for hours and hours, holing up between the shelves and attending readings by a steady roster of literary luminaries. I’ve never stopped getting lost there and never will.
Beth (Bich) Minh Nguyen, Aimee Phan, and Juvenal Acosta have been my wonderfully supportive colleagues since I moved back to California. Each in her own way, my dear friends Persis Karim and Linda Watanabe McFerrin have been champions of countless writers, and I have been lucky to be one of them. Ashraf Mostofizadeh answered my questions about the Iran of Forugh’s day. Michael McGuire provided not just technical support but loyalty and cheerfulness. My friend Rebecca Foust has supported me in innumerable ways over the years. Her friendship is a source of such joy and inspiration. A phenomenal poet in her own right, she focused her discerning eye on my translations of Forugh’s poetry. They are much stronger for it.
From my earliest childhood, my mother fostered a love of Iranian culture and history in me. I am inspired by her fierce spirit and grateful for her love. I doubt anyone has such unstintingly kind and generous in-laws as mine, Penny and Stephen Reiter. The whole Reiter clan has embraced me as one of its own and now I’m not letting go. Thank you to my wonderful son, Kiyan, who can make me laugh like no one else. And finally, a huge and heartfelt thanks to my husband, Sean, who is always my most lucid adviser and loving supporter. I am beyond lucky to make my way through the world alongside him.
By Jasmin Darznik
The Good Daughter: A Memoir of My Mother’s Hidden Life
Song of a Captive Bird
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JASMIN DARZNIK was born in Tehran, Iran, and moved to America when she was five years old. Author of the New York Times bestseller The Good Daughter: A Memoir of My Mother’s Hidden Life, she has been published in thirteen countries and recognized by the Steinbeck Fellows Program, Corporation of Yaddo, Library of Virginia, and William Saroyan International Prize. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Fiction from Bennington College and a PhD in English from Princeton University. Now a professor of literature and creative writing at California College of the Arts, she lives in Northern California with her family.
jasmin-darznik.com
Facebook.com/jasmindarznikauthor
Twitter: @jasmindarznik
Instagram: @jdarznik
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