S6 Ep. 4: Women Resisting Terror in Iran: Porochista Khakpour on the Historic Protests Against the Islamic Republic of Iran

fiction/non/fiction

Novelist and essayist Porochista Khakpour joins Fiction/Non/Fiction hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss the current wave of protests for women’s rights in Iran, and the government’s brutal crackdown in response. Khakpour laments the deaths of young women who have lost their lives speaking out against compulsory hijab. She also reflects on and celebrates multiple generations of human rights protests in the country of her birth. Finally, she talks about what it means to be Iranian in the United States and reads from her essay “Revolution Days,” which is included in her latest book, Brown Album: Essays on Exile and Identity.

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This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Selected Readings:

Porochista Khakpour

• Brown Album: Essays on Exile and Identity
• The Last Illusion
• Sons and Other Flammable Objects
• Sick
• Shirin Ebadi: 'Almost a fourth of the people on Earth are Muslim. Are they like each other? Of course not' | Working in development | The Guardian (April 25, 2017)
• “What I Saw at the Revolution,” The Daily Beast (Feb. 11, 2009)

Others:

• “Iranian President Orders Enforcement of Hijab and Chastity Law for Women” by Ardeshir Tayebi, RadioFreeEurope / RadioLiberty's Radio Farda (July 7, 2022)
• “In Iran, Woman's Death After Arrest by the Morality Police Triggers Outrage,” by Farnaz Fassihi, The New York Times (Sept. 16, 2022)
• “Nika Shakarami: Iran protester's family forced to lie about death,” by Parham Ghobadi, BBC Persian (Oct. 6, 2022)
• “Another teenage girl dead at hands of Iran's security forces, reports claim,” by Deepa Parent and Annie Kelly, The Guardian, (Oct. 7, 2022)
• “Unity In Diversity: On Overcoming the Erasure of Kurdistan and Jina,” by Ala Riani and Rezan Labady, Los Angeles Review of Books, (Oct. 13, 2022)
• “Protest Chants, a Riot and Gunshots: How a Prison Fire Unfolded in Iran,” by Farnaz Fassihi, The New York Times (Oct. 21, 2022)
• Jasmin Darznik and Dina Nayeri on the 40th Anniversary of the Iranian Revolution (Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 2, Episode 23)

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