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Scheherazade and Her Novelist
Publisher
:
Fayard
Parution date
:
2002
EAN
:
9782213610023
Description
Charifi, a young man destined to become a writer, is threatened to death by characters out of a novel he has yet to write, because, in his future book, he will write about the tyranny which exists in his country, the brutality of its leaders and its mysterious killings. It is the characters from Charifi’s future book who try to prevent their end by attempting to kill Charifi while he is still a child and ignorant of his destiny. Azadeh--short for Scheherazade--, a beautiful and intelligent woman married to Bib-Oghli, Charifi’s cousin, contributes to his education by inciting him to read all sorts of books, especially novels. She dies by her husband’s hands just when Charifi comes of age. She comes back from the dead, however, reincarnating herself as Scheherazade and other women to help Charifi confound the enemies’ plans and inspire his writing throughout his life. She appears under different names each time Charifi faces difficulties: as Zahra, the novelist’s late mother; Dice--short for Euridice—to symbolize the Western woman; and more. Scheherazade, the essence of the feminine, travels from one period of history to another and from one story to another, becoming a major character who appears in successive plots as she wishes. Thanks to her presence, the reader is able to follow the intricately-woven stories which constitute the book, especially when we learn that Charifi and his companions are characters of yet another novel, that of Dr. Reza who was asked to deliver an unusual manuscript. As Dr. Reza writes his book, we learn what in Charifi’s life will be taken out of his novel or left to his final manuscript.
Shéhérazade et son romancier, by Iran’s leading novelist and poet, Reza Baraheni, is already considered by many French critics as a classic. A true continuation to The Thousand and One Nights and inspired by the same oral tradition, Shéhérazade et son romancier fantastically unites East and West with the diversity and richness of its narrative, cultural and literary references, especially to women. It is also a remarkable voice against tyranny, especially that of Iran before and after 1979, and a voice of a writer’s survival from exile and oppression and its impact on writing.
Author
Reza Baraheni : Writer Reza Baraheni was born in 1935. An Azerbaijani from Iran, he is an accomplished poet, novelist and theorist who has written more than 50 books. In 1977, Harper’s Magazine called him “Iran’s finest living poet.” His work includes Crowned Cannibals (Vintage Books, 1977) a collection of prose and poetry, Les saisons en enfer du jeune Ayyaz (Fayard, 2000), and The Infernal Times of Mr. Ayaz, published in Alberto Manguel’s anthology, God’s Spies (Macfarlane Walter & Ross, 1999). His God’s Shadow: Prison Poems (Indiana University Press, 1976) is a collection of poems based on a period of 102 days spent in solitary confinement in Iran during the time of the Shah. He was also imprisoned in the fall of 1981 and the winter 1982 by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Active for the last 35 years trying to promote democratic freedom in his country, Baraheni was a signatory to a 1996 open letter to the world calling for artistic freedom and an end to censorship. He now lives in Canada where he is president of PEN Canada and a visiting Professor at the University of Toronto.
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