I first met Shokoofeh Azar in Fremantle about 3 years ago after reading a story she had published in the Westerly. Within 5 minutes we were chatting as if we had shared a childhood and memories we both knew we hadn’t. At one stage we cried. She said she loved India and I said I was writing a novel in which Iran featured. Connections like this are rare and when they happen I need to ask why. Which is why, when I met Shokoofeh again in Fremantle, 3 years after that first meeting, I asked for permission to tell her story.
Shokoofeh Azar is an Iranian born writer and artist. She arrived in Australia 6 years ago on a boat – and says that is the thing Australians find most interesting about her. As if surviving a boat journey defines a person for life. It is a loaded existence, charged with a larger-than-life meaning that she does not own. How I got here is not what I’m about, she says. I have stories I want to tell. I paint. I’m a mother. None of what she’s about has anything to do with how she came to be living in Perth.
She is a writer of fabulous magic realist tales and a talented artist. I know the power of her stories because that is what led me to her. In my humble stalker fashion, I tracked her down, sent her an email and asked to meet her. At the time I was writing my own novel of intersecting histories and wanted (desperately) to connect with an Iranian writer who could be a sounding board.
And in that first meeting, I tell her what I’m trying to do. She nods and tells me about travelling the Silk Road on the back of a truck. I speak of the lost boy from Abadan I knew when I was a girl. She likes Delhi, she says, with a look in her eyes that situates her there in an instant. I tell her of my desire to visit Tehran. She provides a cautionary tale about trees and blind men and women standing by street corners, but it is not a description – it is a fable. And the conversation continues in this fashion with neither of us questioning its intent. I leave with a sense of purpose and work on my novel with joy. She, meanwhile, discovers another way to tell her stories – she paints and sculpts and potters. The mythical birds and beasts she writes about are translated into paintings and bas-reliefs and visions of beauty.
When I next speak to Shokoofeh in the shadow of the asylum in Fremantle, a weak sun slants over the rooftops, and I am reminded of stories my grandmother told me. Shokoofeh’s language is steeped in the lore and myth of ‘other’ places. Her first language is Farsi; it sounds magical and lyrical to my untrained ears. When she speaks English she is translating ideas, thoughts and words that come to her from the language of Rumi and Firdaus, but also Marquez and Kundera. She reads copiously, in Farsi, and writes like a woman possessed, also in Farsi. Her first novel (The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree) is complete and waits for a publisher. She thinks it will be hard to find a publisher because it is not a story about surviving as a refugee; rather it is about surviving as a person, a political, magical, fabulous person. Her current project is about love, she says. She mentions Gilgamesh and Romeo, Shireen and Shakuntala and I remember again that this is how conversations used to happen in India, before I became Australian. Our myths breathe again, our stories resurface and our belongings straddle the cultural divide in the most unexpected conversations.
Shokoofeh’s literary page is here and this is her artist page.
Thanks so much for sharing some of Shokoofeh’s story and perspective.Has certainly given me some things to think about in terms of how I write the stories I want to tell.
You’re welcome, Mindy. It’s not that what happened to her isn’t important, it’s that she wants people to know more than the ‘refugee’ story. And I have no doubt you have found your own compassionate way into these stories.
And that’s what was so important for me tp hear and learn.
Sensitive and intriguing profile. Thanks, Rashida.
Thanks Nicola
I remember reading Shookofeh’s stories; in fact, I think I selected one for Westerly. An intriguing, powerful writer, and it was lovely to read her story here, Rashida.
That you did, Amanda. Well remembered. Yes, an amazing writer and artist and I hope her novel will be published to world wide acclaim.
Fascinating to hear and read about her. I have not come across her before.
Also interesting what you said about synchronicity and connections … magic realism is featuring more and more in my life with my impending trip to Colombia which I believe is its birth place. Marquez uses it a lot in his writing. x
Marquez is fabulous, and my friend is a big fan of his writing. Looking forward to hearing more about your trip, Louise. xx
Thank you so much Rashida for your beautiful article about me and my writing…Also thank you for all interesting comments that your friends left here… I appreciate… We all are literature lovers 🙂
You are very welcome Shokoofeh. I hope your stories find a wide audience. Thank you for talking to me.
Thank you and it’s my pleasure… You know talking about literature is my only passion, special with friends like you that have same feeling about writing 🙂
And I hope your passion is recognised by a publisher soon 🙂
Dear Rashida,
You have managed to capture Shokoofeh’s uncompromising creative force so well. I’m very impressed with how you managed to – in a very crystalline way- convey Shokoofeh’s igneous literary strength. Shokoofeh is unlike any other person and artist that I have come across, purely sui generis, and that is such a rare phenomenon in art these days. Her artistic print is exactly as you describe, she doesn’t carry any other flag or banner other than the raw material she distils from her true essence.
I have said it many times, and I stand by it, the day the whole of Perth, Western Australia, and Australia open their eyes and souls to Shokoofeh’s work, will be a day of reckoning to Perth’s Art scene. A day to remember.
Thank you Rashida.
Wildaliz
Thank you so much for your lovely comments, Wildaliz. Yes, Shokoofeh’s strengths as an artist and as a writer are exceptional. I hope to cheer her on as the world discovers her talent.
Guys please…I don’t deserve of all the accolades and attentions. You are so generous and kind to me… appreciate…
I read this piece again and Rashida you nailed it! It takes a great writer to capture the essence, pin down the butterfly, of another great writer.
Thanks Wildaliz. Appreciate your second reading and your lovely compliment.
[…] did seem to be the year of reading debut novels – the next on my list is Shokoofeh Azar’s The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree. It is hard to describe in a sentence, so I invite you to […]