Every person I know who shares a passion for the art of literature, seems to have some sort of fairytale-like memory about how they first fell so deeply in love with a world of stories and poetries; like the first book they read, or the first poem they recited, or someone in their life who inspired them to learn more and read more. For me though, this doesn’t seem to be the case. You see, I was born into a culture built upon one of the world’s oldest literatures. A culture that spans over two-and-a-half millennia. So really, literature is all that I’ve ever known.
There were a lot of things I didn’t like about school in Iran, but learning about Persian literature was not even close to being one of them. All the different styles, names, compositions, meanings, and beautiful rhythm made me feel things I’d never felt before. I felt a sense of balance and closeness to everything; people, nature, and the universe as a whole. I grew up in a family that holds cultural traditions above all else so even at home, literature was a big part of my reality.
While other kids read bedtime stories at night, I was busy trying to interpret distichs of the Shahnameh so I could finally find out if Rostam was able to defeat the enemy once and for all. If I wasn’t doing that, then I’d be reading The Divan of Hafez with my father so I could learn to be a better person with a purpose in this world. I remember how every time my father wanted to give my sister and I any kind of advice about leading a better life, he’d pull out this tiny edition he had of the Divan and ask us to randomly pick a chapter, so that every time we’d learn something different.
At 17 years old, I feel every word and verse by these literary geniuses in my mind, heart, and soul. Hafez, Saadi, Ferdowsi, Forough, Shamlou,… these people aren’t just historical icons to me, they’re family, they’re flesh and blood. By giving birth to multiple generations of culturally classic literature, these people have given us the voice to communicate with other cultures of the world, and that for me, is the beauty of this art and what ties my entire existence to it, physically and spiritually.
بنیآدم اعضای یک پیکرند
که در آفرينش ز یک گوهرند
چو عضوى بهدرد آورَد روزگار
دگر عضوها را نمانَد قرار
تو کز محنت دیگران بیغمی
نشاید که نامت نهند آدمی
“Human beings are members of a whole,
since in their creation they are of one essence.
When the conditions of the time brings a member (limb) to pain,
the other members (limbs) will suffer from discomfort.
You, who are indifferent to the misery of others,
it is not fitting that they should call you a human being.” – Saadi Shirazi