The Other Side of the Wall - A Short Story by Goli Taraghi - Translated by Sholeh Wolpé 2019 - included in Book of Tehran: A City in Short Stories introduced by Orkideh Behrouzan

The Other Side of the Wall - A Short Story by Goli Taraghi 25 Pages- Translated by Sholeh Wolpé 2019 - included in Book of Tehran: A City in Short Stories introduced by Orkideh Behrouzan  

"A city of stories – short, fragmented, amorphous, and at times contradictory – Tehran is an impossible tale to tell. No single depiction would suffice; and yet, over-simplified accounts of Tehran abound in Western media: from click-bait clichés about veiled women to images of a youth in revolt, from the colourful elegance of Tehran’s emerging fashion scene to the belligerent rhetoric of international tensions. Tehran’s political representation on the global stage has been marred by the post-war-on-terror misfortune of depicting everything in black or white. There are, however, many stories in between these simplifications, where ordinary life takes place across a multitude of fragmentary scenes and in the messy grey area that anthropologists call lived life." From the introduction 
 

A link to four short Stories by Goli Taraghi on Words without Borders

https://wordswithoutborders.org/contributors/view/goli-taraghi/

I was delighted to discover there is a short story by Goli Taraghi in The Book of Tehran: A City in Short Stories. I have been reading her work for years.  In today's story, " The Other Side of the Wall", a generous 25 pages, a 15 year old girl living with her parents in a big apartment complex in the market area of Tehran, gives us a cinematic picture of her growth into adulthood.

The women in the complex all hate one particular woman.  In the mean time the girl's parents force her to take piano lessons, which she hates.

Everything comes to a wild conclusion on the day of her piano rehearsal.

Born in Tehran in 1931, Goli Taraghi is the daughter of a Member of Parliament, publisher and journalist. She began her writing career with a collection of short stories entitled I Too Am Che Guevar (1969). Her works include the novel, Winter Sleep, and the short story collections, Scattered Memories, Another Place, The Second Chance, and An Occurrence. Her short story ‘The Great Lady of My Soul’ (1982) was translated into French in 1985, and won the Contre-Ciel Short Story Prize. She was the recipient of the 2009 Bita Prize for Literature and Freedom, and has been honoured as a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. Her work has been widely translated and anthologised. 

Mel Ulm 

First Day - A Short Story by Goli Taraghi - 2003 - translated from Farsi By the Author

Paris in July 2019

A link to today's story

The First Day is tbe second  short story by Goli Taraghi i have posted upon for Paris in July 2019.  Like The Neighbor it draws on the challenges Taraghi faced after emigrating from Tehran to Paris with her children.

(The Neighbor- A Short Story by Goli Taraghi - 2006. - translated from Farsi by Azizeh Axadi - A Marvelous story about a Family from Tehran adjusting to Life in Paris)

In her preface to this story Taraghi explains her reasons for taking a giant step and her very real issues.

“Author's note: I left Iran in 1979, the year of the Islamic Revolution, and settled in Paris with my two small children. I was naïve enough to think that the chaotic upheaval of the beginning eventually would settle into normal life, and I could return. The increased hostility of the government toward the intellectuals and the war with Iraq, which lasted eight years, forced me to stay longer than I had imagined. I was educated in America and did not speak French. I had to start from zero. Fear of an uncertain future, financial worries, being lost and homesick, and many other problems, conscious and unconscious, all contributed to my nervous breakdown. I believed I could fight back personally. I underestimated the destructive force of the enemy. After a year of suffering, I was finally hospitalized in a psychiatric clinic. Taking the right medication restored my mental stability and helped me to overcome my dreadful anxieties, but what came to my rescue and pulled me out of the dark well of depression was the magical force of literature.”

Many deeply into a reading life as well as the writers among us will see the truth in the final lines.

I really urge you to take the few minutes to read this powerful story so I will not go into much detail.

A Story set Psychiatric Clinic of Ville d'Avray. Outskirts of Paris

Imagine the trauma an immigrant to a country whose language you do not speak and finding yourself strapped to a bed in a mental hospital.  The narrator of the story came to Paris from Tehran with her two children,there is no mention of a husband but she is brought to the hospital by a man deeply concerned for her well being.  Her children are in the care of another woman who immigrated from Tehran. At first she sees it as like a prison, gradually she comes to trust the woman doctor in charge of helping her.  

The stories of Goli Taraghi remind me of those of Mavis Gallant and Jhumpa Lahari.

There are two presentations by Goli Taraghi on YouTube.  

Mel u

The Neighbor- A Short Story by Goli Taraghi - 2006. - translated from Farsi by Azizeh Axadi - A Marvelous. story about a Family from Tehran adjusting to Life in Paris

Paris in July - Hosted by Thyme for Tea 

Words Without Borders - A link to four stories by Goli Taraghi

 Works Read so for Paris in July 2019

1. At the Existentialist Cafe:Freedom, Being and Apricot  Cocktails by Sarah Blackwell.  2016 - An exploration of the Parisian origins of French post World War Two Existentialism 
2. Suzanne's Children: A Daring Rescue in Nazi Paris by Anne Nelson. 2017- an important addition to French Holocaust Literature
3. Journey to the Edge of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine -1932
4. Death on The Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine - 1936
5. "Luc and his Father" - a set in Paris short story by Mavis Gallant - 1982
6. The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer - 2010
7. Paris Vagabond by Jean-Paul Clebert - 1952, translated 2016
8. Cheri by Colette- 1920
9. The Paris Wife by Paula McLain - 2011 - Hemingway’s first marriage 
10. The Bath of Madame Mauriac- A Short Story by Andre de Mandiargues,first published in translation from the French by Albert Herzing, in The Paris Review, Issue 76,  a very weird delightful surrealist story
11. The Neighbor- A Short Story by Goli Taraghi - 2006. - translated from Farsi by Azizeh Axadi - A Marvelous story about a Family from Tehran adjusting to Life in Paris

Today’s story by Goli Taraghi is about a family of Iranian exiles getting adjusted to life in Paris.  Just today CNN said  Iran and the USA are moving toward war.  Despicable American and European politicians rant about immigrants. As he began his first trip in office the current American president said in 

Paris that immigrants were destroying European culture.  The ignorance behind this is nearly unfathomable.  

I have been reading Goli Taraghi for years. I was very happy to discover Words Without Borders has online two of her stories dealing with Iranian exiles living in Paris.  Today I will talk briefly on one, “The Neighbor” and hopefully the other before Paris in July Is over.  If you have not yet read any of her stories either in Farsi or translation, you are in for a treat.  Her work reminds me a bit of another Parisian Exile, Mavis Gallant.

The narrator of “The Neighbor” has recently,along with her family left her ancestral home in Tehran to move to Paris to escape from political violence.  Used to comfort at home, the family lives a in cramped apartment.  She misses the warmth of the people back home.  She gets mixed messages from friends, some say the danger is exaggerated and others report cases of women being beheaded for going outside dressed in violation of tradition.  The biggest problem is she has a horrible neighbor woman living below them constantly complaining about the noise the family makes.  She even demands that thick carpet be installed to muffle sound.

As the story progresses we see the narrator adjusting to life in Paris. Most of all we see a transformation of her perception of the crazy neighbor.

For sure this story is worth reading. 

YouTube has several interesting interviews with Goli Taraghi 

Mel u