We begin tonight’s edition of A Window to the Fatherland with Dr. Alireza Nourizadeh reading one of his poems from the book of his collected works.
Dr. Alireza Nourizadeh:
Forty years ago these days were leading up to the Islamic revolution in Iran and the coming to power of Khomeini and his followers.
They began their rule with a massacre of the former regime’s officials.
At the same time Iran’s intellectuals and activists were after their own business and we had the Writers Association whose youngest members then was Assad Seif, who is our gusts tonight. He lives in Germany but is visiting London for a book launch.
Assad Seif:
It seems London is the center of news about Iran. Like many other Iranians I have been busy writing books and organizing book-reading meetings. In all my cultural works I have tried to preserve the Persian language and our Germanfriends have been very helpful in that respect.
Naturally our literature reflects our exiled life which in a way help us stay in touch with each other and reflect the voice of those who live under the repression at home.
We have been representing the works of our colleagues at home on internationalstage too but sadly it has not continued consistently of late.
The truth is that we have been thrown out of our motherland and the Western world is very wide. But we are always trying to learn from our host countries.