DESTINATION: IRAN
Sunday, March 8th, 10AM to 11:30AM (We'll have tea + coffee!)
FREE, but RSVP is helpful!
Postcard Bookshop | 81 SE Yamhill St, PDX 97214
Parking lot located in back, off of Water Ave
Our Word Travel Book Club meets every-other-month to read books from a common country. We pick the destination and you choose what book to read! When we gather, we’ll all be introduced to a broader survey of a country’s writing, and have the chance to explore connections and themes across books.
NEXT STOP: IRAN
From 2010 to 2017, a takeout window in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, operated as one of the sharpest bits of social-practice-art/protest that I've seen. Conflict Kitchen served food from countries with which the US was in conflict, changing their focus twice-yearly to a new region, each illuminated through meals, publications and public events. I never had the chance to visit, but even from afar, their project was inspiring. If I chose to focus the book club solely on US aggression, I'd have material to cover years of rotating countries, so it really shouldn't be a surprise that our next country would be in the US crosshairs yet again.
To coincide with Nowruz — the Persian New Year that is celebrated on the vernal equinox — I've been planning for several months to make Iran the March feature. Now, nationwide protests—and the government's brutal killing of demonstrators—has thrust the nation back into the international spotlight. Fittingly, this is a culture for which literature has long been a refuge and a source of resistance, from classic ghazals to the many writers (diaspora and domestic) that find ways to work around state censorship. I think you'll find that there is a lot to explore. I've made a few recommendations below, but you can always choose another book from our featured country. Read a long-overdue classic, or try out a new genre — read what catches your attention!
Suggested from the shop:
Blind Owl by Sadeq Hedayat
Women Without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur
Censoring an Iranian Love Story by Shahriar Mandanipour
My Uncle Napoleon by Iraj Pezeshkzad
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar
My Part of Her by Javad Djavahery
trans(re)lating house one by Poupeh Missaghi
Woman Life Freedom by Marjane Satrapi
I'm Writing You from Tehran by Delphine MIno
Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season by Forough Farrokhzad
Out of Mesopotamia by Salar Abdoh
The Faces of Love by Hafez
View these books (and more):