While Dragging Our Hearts Behind Us
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French Hats in Iran
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All memoirs bring the past into the present, but only a few manage to illuminate both simultaneously. This a quietly insightful masterpiece of remembrance, belongs in that select group. Heydar Radjavi's evocations of growing up in Tabriz in the 1930s and 1940s describe a traditionalist Iran grappling with modernity, a process as fraught with contradictions and stresses then as it is in Iran today. In a series of mini-tales, we meet a rich cast of characters: the elderly father who works in the Tabriz bazaar and runs his household according to unbending religious precepts; the resourceful mother who finds ways to enjoy such forbidden frivolities as music; the female playmate who marries at the age of nine; the teacher whose personal journey takes him from strictest piety to political radicalism; and many more. Finding a path through all the complexities is Radjavi himself -- a wide-eyed little boy in some episodes, an adventurous teenager in others, and finally a young man preparing to enter a fast-changing world. The tone is always light, the memories wonderfully vivid, and the underlying theme of tension between old and new truly timeless.
Heydar Radjavi was born and raised in Tabriz and did not leave that city until he was admitted to the University of Tehran in 1953. He was in love with modern Persian literature and dreamed of being a writer until he switched to mathematics at the end of high school (but that is another story). He was sent to the University of Minnesota, where he got his doctorate in 1962. He then taught in Iranian, American, and Canadian universities until he moved permanently to Canada in 1972. He now resides in Waterloo, Ontario, with his wife Ursula. He has published books and articles in mathematical journals, and has been known to most of his friends and acquaintances as a mathematician. This collection constitutes his first publication outside mathematics in 55 years.
- ISBN-13
- 9781933823454
- Publisher
- Mage Publishers
- Imprint
- Mage Publishers Inc (US)
- Publication date
- 16 May 2011
- Format
- Hardback
- Pages
- 216
- Dimensions
- 135 x 210 mm
- Language
- English
