Shahrnush Parsipur
Author of Women Without Men
About the Author
Image credit: Shahrnush Parsipur
Works by Shahrnush Parsipur
Blue Logos. A Novel. [Bibliotheca Iranica: Persian Fiction in Translation Series, No. 19] (1994) 3 copies
Erkeksiz Kadınlar 2 copies
Meesteta naised 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- شهرنوش پارسی پور
- Birthdate
- 1946-02-17
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Tehran University (BA)
The Sorbonne (Chinese language) - Nationality
- Iran
- Birthplace
- Tehran, Iran
- Places of residence
- Tehran, Iran (birth)
Providence, Rhode Island, USA - Associated Place (for map)
- Iran
Members
Reviews
My first from the 2026 International Booker Prize longlist. I got a library copy and read it the same day. It took three hours, and I'm not a fast reader.
Written in the 1970's in the Shah's Iran, published in 1989 in the Ayatollah's Iran, this book against the Iranian cultural patriarchy led to the author's imprisonment. It comes from its own era, and to us having weathered the forgetful critics of time. It's a feminist artwork working with the tropes on masculine culture, as well as folk show more tales, Iranian myth and magical realism. But it lives in its present, here and now in its own contemporary in Tehran, including partially during the American-led coup in 1953. Its urban and unforgiving.
The novel follows five women from widely different parts of Tehran society. Mahdokht is tree. She left her assistant principal job when the principal came on to her. Far'iza is 28 and after a potential husband, Amir Khan. Amir's sister, Munis, is also unmarried, at 38, and Far'iza thinks she's stupid because she has a round head. Farrokhlaqa's marriage went stale before she murdered her unfaithful husband. Now she wants to find a home with a garden so she can host guests and become a senator. Zarrinkolah is a prostitute.
These women come together by chance in Farrokhlaqa's garden outside a small village near Tehran. They live together, find some strength in their five combined variations, but don't really get along and don't really like each other. They each have their own priorities. But they cooperate in their own way.
I found the cold dialogue curios and memorable.
Munis tells Far'ika,
Munis falls out a window
I found the book has a fundamental power to it. The mythology and magic giving it weight, the urban present interesting, the slightly absurd dialogue creating a sense of curiosity. It's puzzling and has kept me thinking about it. An easy recommendation for the curious.
2026
https://www.librarything.com/topic/378447#9144114 show less
Written in the 1970's in the Shah's Iran, published in 1989 in the Ayatollah's Iran, this book against the Iranian cultural patriarchy led to the author's imprisonment. It comes from its own era, and to us having weathered the forgetful critics of time. It's a feminist artwork working with the tropes on masculine culture, as well as folk show more tales, Iranian myth and magical realism. But it lives in its present, here and now in its own contemporary in Tehran, including partially during the American-led coup in 1953. Its urban and unforgiving.
The novel follows five women from widely different parts of Tehran society. Mahdokht is tree. She left her assistant principal job when the principal came on to her. Far'iza is 28 and after a potential husband, Amir Khan. Amir's sister, Munis, is also unmarried, at 38, and Far'iza thinks she's stupid because she has a round head. Farrokhlaqa's marriage went stale before she murdered her unfaithful husband. Now she wants to find a home with a garden so she can host guests and become a senator. Zarrinkolah is a prostitute.
These women come together by chance in Farrokhlaqa's garden outside a small village near Tehran. They live together, find some strength in their five combined variations, but don't really get along and don't really like each other. They each have their own priorities. But they cooperate in their own way.
I found the cold dialogue curios and memorable.
Munis tells Far'ika,
"Interesting is the way your are."
"I take that as a compliment."
"I'm not sure about that."
Munis falls out a window
Farther down the alley a man had fallen into a ditch with his legs sticking out. Uncontrollably Munis moved in his direction. The man's face was also turned skyward, his eyes open.
"Are you all right" Munis asked.
"I'm dead," the man answered.
"Can I help you in any way?"
"The best thing for you to do is to leave. You might get into trouble."
"Why?"
"Can't you hear the noise? It is payback time."
"So what are you doing here?" Munis wanted to know.
"Dear lady," said the man, with a touch of impatience, "I told you. I am dead."
I found the book has a fundamental power to it. The mythology and magic giving it weight, the urban present interesting, the slightly absurd dialogue creating a sense of curiosity. It's puzzling and has kept me thinking about it. An easy recommendation for the curious.
2026
https://www.librarything.com/topic/378447#9144114 show less
In a way, of course, the title is a lie. Women without men is an impossibility as long as women are defined first and foremost by their relationships to men, which obviously is no less true given the setting of the novel, but hardly unique to it either.
Women Without Men tell the story of a half-dozen women circling this issue while rarely able to confront it head-on - even if they do, even if they kill or die or return from death with the power to read minds or turn into a tree (yes, it's show more that kind of novel) there's always invisible barriers both within and without, a limit to the world in which they're allowed to exist. And since they have to share it, as women, of course, they sometimes find it easier to turn on each other, to find (real) differences rather than similarities. Nothing breeds contempt better than seeing your own limits in a mirror. Nevertheless...
(The subtitle is interesting. The book is mostly set pre-revolution (I think), yet it's explicitly called "a novel of modern Iran". The characters live in a modern world, they compare themselves and others to US movie stars, they speak openly (within closed doors) about sex, they inhabit a modern world - one that's supposedly been swept away by revolution, yet from this POV, doesn't look much different. Like any writer working under state censorship, there's sadly only so much you can get away with by claiming "What? I'm writing about how bad the previous regime was.")
Parsipur's writing (in Farrokh's translation) is odd; at once highly symbolic and fairytale-like, and matter-of-factly furious, in a way that sometimes works wonders, and sometimes makes it feel as if I'm reading two novels at once. At least one of them is very good, though. show less
Women Without Men tell the story of a half-dozen women circling this issue while rarely able to confront it head-on - even if they do, even if they kill or die or return from death with the power to read minds or turn into a tree (yes, it's show more that kind of novel) there's always invisible barriers both within and without, a limit to the world in which they're allowed to exist. And since they have to share it, as women, of course, they sometimes find it easier to turn on each other, to find (real) differences rather than similarities. Nothing breeds contempt better than seeing your own limits in a mirror. Nevertheless...
(The subtitle is interesting. The book is mostly set pre-revolution (I think), yet it's explicitly called "a novel of modern Iran". The characters live in a modern world, they compare themselves and others to US movie stars, they speak openly (within closed doors) about sex, they inhabit a modern world - one that's supposedly been swept away by revolution, yet from this POV, doesn't look much different. Like any writer working under state censorship, there's sadly only so much you can get away with by claiming "What? I'm writing about how bad the previous regime was.")
Parsipur's writing (in Farrokh's translation) is odd; at once highly symbolic and fairytale-like, and matter-of-factly furious, in a way that sometimes works wonders, and sometimes makes it feel as if I'm reading two novels at once. At least one of them is very good, though. show less
I’m a white male. And no matter how enlightened I think I am, I will probably never truly realize all the ways in which those two things make my lot in life so much easier. What made me ponder this fact? Lately I’ve been reading a lot of world fiction by women of color or involving characters who are women of color. Books like the amazing Petals of Blood by Ngugi wa Thiongo (1 strike) and Touba and the Meaning of Night by Shahruush Parsipur (2 strikes). Books like these remind me how show more hard life can be for the disenfranchised in general, and for women in particular.
Shahruush Parsipur, the author of TMN, knows a little about those difficulties. She was imprisoned both during the Shah’s regime and later by the Islamic Republic. She now lives in exile and all her works remain banned in Iran. In TMN, she takes us through about 80 years of Iranian history from the Constitutional Revolution at the beginning of the 20th century to the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Her heroine, Touba, is named after the mythical tree that is rooted in paradise and shades the houses of the Prophet and the faithful. She is a learned woman, forceful and confident in some ways, but intrepid and powerless in others. Throughout the book she runs into the barriers to women created by the patriarchy and fundamentalism and tries to find ways to live a meaningful life despite them. At one point, she is arranging her own marriage to her father’s nephew save face for her family, even though he is her mother’s age. After she is divorced by him, her family encourages her to marry one of the Qajar princes, with the support of the princes’ sister who hopes it will make him settle down and stop taking her own husband out carousing and womanizing. Another recipe for disaster. He is later force to flee as a new dynasty comes to power and leaves Touba to fend for herself and their children. When he returns it is with another, younger wife and little desire to support her. Throughout her long life, she has the urge to follow a mystic path that is difficult or forbidden for women. Touba’s experiences and even the house she lives in becomes a symbol of the radical changes and crumbling traditions in the society around her. A good read and a great first place for me to start with Persian Literature.
The book is published by the Feminist Press at the City University of New York and contains some very interesting supplemental material. Kamran Talattof provides a piece on Translating Women’s Experience that discusses how the novel was translated with Havya Houshmand. He has this to say about the approach they took in the translation of the novel:
“In all this, we have been hoping that with a practical rendering of all the signs, symbols, and references, the appreciation of this novel in the guest language will also be enhanced by the similarity of women’s experiences worldwide. Touba’s aspirations, agonies, failures, suppression, hopes and life story are too universal to be lost between languages. Concerns about the condition of women, long-lasting sexual oppression, the challenges in accepting one’s sexuality, complexities in the concept of chastity, and resistance to male-dominated culture—all themes that call for a harsh reaction for the advocates of the state ideology in Iran—can also easily find an audience in other parts of the world and in other languages.”
There is also an interesting afterword by Houra Yavari and an informative biography by M. Karim that rounds out the novel. show less
Shahruush Parsipur, the author of TMN, knows a little about those difficulties. She was imprisoned both during the Shah’s regime and later by the Islamic Republic. She now lives in exile and all her works remain banned in Iran. In TMN, she takes us through about 80 years of Iranian history from the Constitutional Revolution at the beginning of the 20th century to the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Her heroine, Touba, is named after the mythical tree that is rooted in paradise and shades the houses of the Prophet and the faithful. She is a learned woman, forceful and confident in some ways, but intrepid and powerless in others. Throughout the book she runs into the barriers to women created by the patriarchy and fundamentalism and tries to find ways to live a meaningful life despite them. At one point, she is arranging her own marriage to her father’s nephew save face for her family, even though he is her mother’s age. After she is divorced by him, her family encourages her to marry one of the Qajar princes, with the support of the princes’ sister who hopes it will make him settle down and stop taking her own husband out carousing and womanizing. Another recipe for disaster. He is later force to flee as a new dynasty comes to power and leaves Touba to fend for herself and their children. When he returns it is with another, younger wife and little desire to support her. Throughout her long life, she has the urge to follow a mystic path that is difficult or forbidden for women. Touba’s experiences and even the house she lives in becomes a symbol of the radical changes and crumbling traditions in the society around her. A good read and a great first place for me to start with Persian Literature.
The book is published by the Feminist Press at the City University of New York and contains some very interesting supplemental material. Kamran Talattof provides a piece on Translating Women’s Experience that discusses how the novel was translated with Havya Houshmand. He has this to say about the approach they took in the translation of the novel:
“In all this, we have been hoping that with a practical rendering of all the signs, symbols, and references, the appreciation of this novel in the guest language will also be enhanced by the similarity of women’s experiences worldwide. Touba’s aspirations, agonies, failures, suppression, hopes and life story are too universal to be lost between languages. Concerns about the condition of women, long-lasting sexual oppression, the challenges in accepting one’s sexuality, complexities in the concept of chastity, and resistance to male-dominated culture—all themes that call for a harsh reaction for the advocates of the state ideology in Iran—can also easily find an audience in other parts of the world and in other languages.”
There is also an interesting afterword by Houra Yavari and an informative biography by M. Karim that rounds out the novel. show less
This novella was written in Paris in 1978, and first published in Iran in 1989 (which led to her going to prison). It was only translated (officially) into English a few years ago.. I think the film adaptation was released here before the book was even translated. It differs from Nesrit's film in certain ways (but that is not relevant here).
A portrait of five women of different ages and lifestyles eventually find themselves together in a garden where they find solace but eventually realize show more they must reintegrate into society to create meaningful change.
This isnt a story without men. A few men here are decent, but it's the male dominated society that oppresses. It takes place while in the background, the US is engaged in a coup against Mosaddegh, but that isn't really part of the plot. It's got a fair amount of magical realism though. This is something I have grown fatigued with at this point, but it seems to work well with Persian setting for use as different allegories. show less
A portrait of five women of different ages and lifestyles eventually find themselves together in a garden where they find solace but eventually realize show more they must reintegrate into society to create meaningful change.
This isnt a story without men. A few men here are decent, but it's the male dominated society that oppresses. It takes place while in the background, the US is engaged in a coup against Mosaddegh, but that isn't really part of the plot. It's got a fair amount of magical realism though. This is something I have grown fatigued with at this point, but it seems to work well with Persian setting for use as different allegories. show less
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