iran and the banning of the author's work by iranian authorities. this is about an hour and ten minutes. >> okay. greetings, everyone. i'm dennis johnson, the co-publisher of melville house, and it is my great pleasure to welcome you to our offices in brooklyn for this event which focuses on one writer's attempts to write under extraordinary, even deadly pressure. the talk features one of the world's most esteemed men, a great iranian historian and the man generally herald as iran's greatest writer who has worked under levels of stress not known to most writers here in the u.s. as a publisher, i'm always encountering writers about the risks their taking, the poets who decided to try free verse, a

male novelist who's thinking of writing from a woman's point of view, but today we're going to hear from a writer who knows something much more profound about risky writing. i will met -- let him tell you himself, but having published his epic, i have to observe he's not really a political writer. he simply writes about life in his country. not about the shah or the ayatollahs, but about the people. and the fact that he has been imprisoned in the past for this kind of writing tells you something about the acuteness of his writing. i suspect i've learned more about the reality of his country from his beautiful, beautiful books than i have from a thousand newspaper reports. we should be thankful to him for that and, by the way, for reminding those of us in america who have lately been questioning the value of books, the very future of books, that books are

still the ultimate, most revolutionary technology for human understanding. mahmoud has, in the more ways than one, reminded us of what literature is all about. translating today will be a professor of iranian history at new york university, and i must add perhaps the greaters champion of persian writers in america she has been invaluable to us here at melville house, for example, to first contact writers to find the perfect translator and make those books appear in english. conducting the conversation will be yet another great writer, hamid debashi, professor of iranian studies in comparative literature at columbia university here in new york and author of some 20 books including a one-volume iranian

history, iran, and most recently the books "iran, the green movement and the usa." .. so productive that despite the fact that his only a decade or so older than me five grown

up with his novels. in many ways my intellectual who political mental makeup is a product of the fiction. i've read him since 1980, and as i speak right now, i just turned 60, i am reading his most recent novel of the kernel that as you know has not been published, and i borrowed it from him a couple of nights ago and i said finish it over the night. the novelist so exquisitely powerful, so amazingly powerful that it is impossible to finish it in just one. his significance for us in iran.

it's impossible to exaggerate. on many occasions it is like having a national museum come across the ocean on loan to us share in the united states. he is not that well known to the english-speaking world. only one of his fictions before the colonel was translated. one of his absolute master pieces. and this is the second work that has been translated into english , and as any other student i am absolutely delighted that english-speaking world americans must immediately will have the chance to get to know. as i have been trying to persuade, his absolute masterpiece is a ten volume epic

that it is one of the seventh of literature. and i can only hope and pray that there will be an occasion for that book to be translated into english. now the purpose of my conversation today would be asking very basic questions so in his own words we will convey to you by extension his own conception mostly of what is the significance of this particular novel, the colonel. i would conduct a conversation with my colleague to translate.

>> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: you have been a very active and productive writer throughout your life, and you have a large volume of writing. from your point of view, can you please explain what the significance of this particular novel is? a very difficult question. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: it belongs in a place that i never imagined it would. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i wasn't planning to write this book and the way that this book came upon

me all by itself. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: when i finished my novel, trinidad which is a ten volume novel that was mentioned before, i went to the store and bought myself a new notebook to write another novel which was on my mind which is called the past, which was published in persian. i struggle with the name. i know it's about old people -- yeah, the past times of aging people.

>> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: around 1983 as i was finishing that manuscript and going on to the second one, i felt some inner turmoil, and i have to figure out how to deal with the inner turmoil. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i began to write haphazardly, just elements and figure of this is not it

>> to [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i began to get a more clear image to bring that image down in paper. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: was a very difficult time in iran, and i was very anguished, and it suddenly it all translated into somebody knocking at the door at night and this image began to grow. >> [speaking in native tongue]

>> translator: as i began to write i knew i had a terrible nightmare come and i had actually written notes about this nightmare. this became the story line of that nightmare. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: this book in a sense became an articulation of this english, and in a way i had to get it out to prevent myself

from becoming. >> translator: this is like an unwanted child. i was also very fearful. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: so you describe the process by which this book came into being, but i'm going back to the question of where is this book now that it's appeared in english and various other european languages, where does

this bookstand in your mind in comparison with your other major work such as the others? >> translator: this is a very different but for many of our but i've done before. >> [speaking in native tongue] the point i want to make is i have to write this book in order to be able to write the other books. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: it's like a bridge that took me from trinidad to the past days of aging people come and this has to be created before i could go on with my riding

>> translator: aside from the will of the person, the mind has an incredible power and leads us to things that are unexpected. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: what is the relationship between them on the brain and the effect on that has always been very curious about this? >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: when i finished i asked myself how did i do this. >> [speaking in native tongue]

>> translator: when i wrote this book i had already written it once before in some form when i was in prison. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: so, in a searching about where this came from, i came to the conclusion that our genes have a certain kind of memory that contains memory. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: this probably was in the works without my knowing it for a long time. >> [speaking in native tongue]

>> translator: this book also has another peculiarity in that the germans cannot last year, the english this year, pretty soon the italian and french versions are coming out, so for this there are these additions that are shadows of the book that has no body yet because it has not come out in persian. what is your opinion of that? >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: it used to be a genre.

>> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: now everything is turned upside down. our lives are so real -- surreal. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i wrote this book 25 years ago, didn't want to publish it than that after 25 years, i assume that it wouldn't be a problem. so i didn't get it yet. >> [speaking in native tongue] why do you think this book isn't getting a permit for publication in iraq?

>> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: so our young journalists actually ask people from the minister of culture and guidance why are you not issuing the permits for this book? >> the person in need the authority i haven't read yet and i am reading it. >> 8%. >> so they kept on asking, and finally they pressed him about it and he said i finished it. yes, i did. >> [inaudible] >> translator: why aren't you issuing the permit? >> [speaking in native tongue]

the official answer that this is a very good book, but it's a very different interpretation of the revolution. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: and he said you are going to contact but they didn't. >> so they run into each other at the funeral of prominent writers and the authority from the ministry i would like to see you and he said i would like to see you, too.

>> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: this is an obvious censorship it's not being camouflaged. and you stated that there has to be a third way. >> my usual preferred segue. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: before my trip i wrote a letter to the ministry of culture and guidance and said we have to find another way because here i am off on a trip this book is being published in different languages, and i am

willing to either write a forward or and afterword or find another way for it to be acceptable. >> this other solution that i found will also as in other times meet a dead end. >> what did you want to write? >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: there's a formula that you can use that would refer the sensors to the fact that possibly the story was written about a long time ago. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: you have the possibility of having this book published in persian and europe and the united states.

why don't you do it? >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i have principles about this. i feel that the present literature that dates back to a thousand years has to be or should be published in our own house country first. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: [speaking in native tongue]

>> translator: like afghanistan and tajikistan. so you think that you are being a little prejudicial by insisting that it would be published in iran will first? >> [speaking in native tongue] i feel that i have a responsibility towards my publisher in iran.

>> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: the work of art is not of itself in essence especially when it comes into the public sphere it takes on a life of its own one there are possibilities for miss ratings and misinterpretations or misunderstandings and a rising from the fact that this work cannot be the original one hit language that is being published

in other languages. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: this is a valid point, and i'm worried about this but i have to trust the translators to be true to my work and hope that it doesn't create misunderstandings. >> [speaking in native tongue]

>> translator: i do know the persian language has certain characteristics in itself that makes it different from other languages, and in persia we have certain silences that are very meaningful in the riding, and this may not come out the same way in other languages. >> [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue]

[speaking in native tongue] >> translator: you are creating a new leadership as this is coming out in english because it is not only going to be read by americans or people in the united kingdom, but also various other countries where english has become one of the most prominent languages. it's a kind of a and anglo

colonialism, and so you were -- furthermore, there are lots of iranians indeed diaspora who don't speak persian not well and they are willing to know your work and they are going to understand your work has it is written in english. so, what do you think of this whole new level of or dimension of leadership? >> [speaking in native tongue]

[speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i actually pleased about this leadership. i think that when persian speakers read this work, they understand in a certain way that connects it to their own language, but since the translation in english is very good, and i believe the other language as well, that the good translation will allow the reader to make their own connections and find new

realities that they may not have known before. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: we have a saying don't say good things about yourself, but i have to say that when the german version came out, the response to it by critics was very, very positive. >> [speaking in native tongue]

>> translator: so the translation was good enough to allow those critics to compare him to some of the greatest writers in the west and this caught him by surprise. it was interesting to him. >> [speaking in native tongue] stat similar positive responses when it was published in german, and was very interesting how a novel based on the reality of tribal life in iran could somehow through a good translation be comprehensible to

people that have no familiarity with that environment. >> [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue]

>> translator: he got an e-mail who teaches comparative literature in the university of california who was asking for recommendations of persian novels to add to his reading list. what he is saying is that that egyptian scholar or turkish scholar to lead persian now has access to your work, so you now gained a wider audience and because of and in spite of the fact that you are not allowed to publish this in your own country >> [speaking in native tongue]

>> translator: i don't know how to translate that. i hesitate to give a quick translation but the essence is if god closes one door, she will open another door somewhere else for you. >> [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: in the last two decades it has been an iranians

cinema in the international culture as representing the art of iran. it hasn't been the literature or poetry or art or music, and because it is and possibly bound by the language of issue that it has its own language of imagery etc.. so, what do you think of this? >> languages natural for the images are censored. and yet we know that we can

understand a civilization through its literature. it's much more difficult to translate. >> [speaking in native tongue] this has more time, more patience and, more debt and the difficulty in transferring to a particular place and considering the immense difficulty that the writer who goes through. >> [speaking in native tongue]

>> translator: it's the audience that is different, too, for the american cinema has taken over the world in terms of film production distribution etc, but when i want to think of america, i think of faulkner and steinbeck. i don't go to the last american movie to try to understand america, but it depends on the audience as well.

>> [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: since the cessation which was widely read,

the blind owl, and sorry and various languages in the west there hasn't been a major novel from iran that has been widely read and appreciated. do you think this is a problem of language or translation? for the translators are lazy? >> [speaking in native tongue]

>> it is immensely difficult to translate the persian language with a great deal of skill and delicacy and other characteristics. >> [speaking in native tongue] you recited a plan which is extremely hard to translate. [laughter] as an example of how difficult it is to translate. i'm not going to do it. [laughter]

>> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: it is more difficult as poetry but extremely difficult because it, too, has a rhythm and nuances and certain difficult images that are extremely difficult to translate, and i have always said that in every good writer there is a little poet hidden inside

>> [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: we are now reaching a time when the book has just been translated and finished. this is a new thing, and they're all part of his heart and they

have lived and produced in his geographical triangle where he comes from. these are being translated and he is being translated, so this is the beginning of a new period where the culture should be and needs to be understood better >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: they won't regret that oil toyo that it takes to translate literature.

>> [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue]

>> translator: every language is beautiful in some way and i sure they consider spanish to be beautiful, so in every language that has not stopped people from translating extensively the works of great authors that have written other languages. we do have some more translation being done of our classical picks as well. but the question is do you think that person has been generally considered as another -- a sort of an unknown other and therefore it hasn't been approached as much and embraced as much in the whole cycle of translation and leadership?

>> [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: it's true what you are saying however the turkish literature has experienced less of a sort of being ignored, and part of the reason why persia hasn't been

translated and explored in the international leadership among international readership is because for the last 200 years or so, we have been in a sense in the doghouse, and i'm sure there is a better way of saying it, but there is a sense of other negativity that has been attached to this island of persian speakers. >> [speaking in native tongue] there are lots of negative things but one good thing is that people are becoming more and more aware that they should

know about the unknown, they should explore the unknown and therefore there is very much time to get to know persian literature. >> [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue]

[speaking in native tongue] that creates more interest, the same, his has created more interest about turkish literature, so that novell has acted as a midwife who for interest in the different cultures. you mentioned that is what started as a nightmare for you to think the nightmare that is encased in this book, and the nightmare that you actually put out that reflects the nightmare of the iranian people is that

nightmare over as well? where do we stand in this nightmare? >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: when they read this book they will remember those nightmares, and one is to shed some light on what has happened in history. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: if my life has been worked out it would be due to the fact i put a lot of time in trying to understand past.

>> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i don't know if people have put these nightmares behind them, but i hope so. i hope that it's happened. >> [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue]

>> translator: since you come to new york and put your pictures on my facebook page, and there's been a tremendous outpouring of affection from people from everywhere from the iranians coming and you should know if the time you've spent writing what you have has earned to the great love of your people. >> [speaking in native tongue]

>> translator: someone came up to him after his panel and said a whole nation is grateful to you and he said no, i am grateful to the nation because they created me. i didn't create the nation. any questions, please, go ahead. >> [speaking in native tongue]

>> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: when he was a child she lived in a village and he heard his mother and other women talking about a person a real live person who was extremely poor and had a number of people but he was extremely proud and did not what the others to look upon him with any kind of thinking about his

poverty. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: so this kind of character is a legend that has become the symbol of pride and perseverance in the face of poverty. so, this was in my mind.

>> [speaking in native tongue] a lot of time passes and i go through many different professions i didn't know i was going to become a writer. i went through all different kinds of jobs and then to the theater and then i became a writer and then i was in prison. in the last few months of prison, i remembered this legend >> [speaking in native tongue] gerrans >> translator: that is what i started doing on this tour. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i had finished the long one only halfway, and i

was in prison. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: so this came an interruption also writing in my mind. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: so having come out of prison he had a novel that he had written in his head, plus this one, and he was very depressed because once he had written it in his mind she found it very difficult to bring

everything back to paper, so in that state of unrest and anxiety he goes to his father and his father says sit down and write, because that is the solution to the level of anxiety that you have. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> so he was struggling with having written it once in his mind and then revisiting it on paper. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: she runs against the wind so to speak and he didn't get up until he had finished

>> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: towards the end of writing this book it was beginning, and his mother called and said a revolution is starting. >> he said why do i care? i have to finish my novel. >> [speaking in native tongue]

>> translator: the question was mozart used to write his pieces from beginning to end. what is your size? you go back and edit all the time or do you sit and write from beginning to end? he said i usually do get the mozart way except for the colonel. there were parts of it that i haven't touched or edited at all. soluch had a minor editing itself, but "the colonel" was the most edited. ..

[speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i was careful because it's structurally different, i was careful because the relationships in it are very different from my other work, and also i was very careful because i didn't want any part of it to be taken as any kind of a political slogan.

being very careful on that front. >> you've spoken quite a bit about the difficulty of translating -- [inaudible] i'm curious the degree to which what languages have been -- [inaudible] [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: it's a great deal of -- [inaudible] [speaking in native tongue]

[speaking in native tongue] >> translator: he says that we, actually, since we were dealing with books, it was sort of beyond borders in terms of iran always be open to translating works of others into persian, and our translation, um, of other works actually started over 150 years ago. a great deal of interest in the reading of literature from other languages if you want to see a book about the history of african literature, we have it there. translated. so there's a great deal of -- [speaking in native tongue]

>> translator: yeah. everybody. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: um, i've, i became familiar with world literature through translation, and i owe them a great deal, the translators. [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue]

>> translator: the question was, in decision to yours or -- addition to yours or in continuation of your question did translated literature have any influence on the development of your own writing style, and he says, undoubtedly, yes. um, reading international literature had a great deal of influence on the development of my style. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: yeah, modern prose lit enough iran developed in direct -- literature in iran developed in direct contact with

international literature. the traditional prose literature was very different. so modern prose is interconnected. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: yeah. our translators know a great deal about different genres that exist, and they can, they can try to adapt it to a kind of a persian equivalent of that genre. one last question? >> one last question. >> yes. >> your time in prison affected the book's -- [inaudible] [speaking in native tongue]

>> translator: his time in prison affected him, it changed him, but what he was writing was a continuation of what he was writing before. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: my big challenge and/or art in prison -- challenge is correct -- in prison was to keep writing in my mind, to continue what i was writing so i wouldn't lose the thread of what i was writing. and then to come out and to be able to finish those projects. [speaking in native tongue]

>> translator: usually i don't like to react to sort of daily changes that are going on. i want to keep the constancy of my work. distractions, i would say. i don't, i don't -- [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: and i've not ever written anything about prison. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: and i may someday get a spark that tells me to write about prison, but i haven't yet. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: so i rely on intuition, and i have to get that spark of intuition before i write about it. [speaking in native tongue]

[laughter] >> translator: otherwise writing is much more difficult than being a -- >> barber. [laughter] >> not a barber, of being a porter? of heavy menial work, is what he's saying. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: once the intuition is there, you don't feel how difficult it is, how strenuous it is. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: so i feel like the whale that goes under the water and goes for long periods of time, comes out for a small breath and goes back again. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: and that's to melville. [laughter] [applause]

>> all this week watch c-span for live gavel-to-gavel coverage of this year's republican national convention in tampa, florida. tonight's session includes speeches by senator rand paul of kentucky, 2008 republican presidential nominee senator john mccain, former secretary of state condoleezza rice, and vice presidential nominee paul ryan. watch every minute, every speech on c-span. glool here on c-span2 it's booktv all day every day throughout the conventions with highlights of nonfiction authors and books from this past year. and on c-span3 also throughout the conventions 24 hours of american history tv with lectures, oral histories and a look at historical american sites and artifacts. >> tonight in prime time on booktv, "wall street journal" reporter kirsten grind talks about her book, "the last bank,"

detailing the collapse of washington mutual in 2008, the largest bank failure in u.s. history. >> so the crisis, they say it happened slowly and then quickly, right? and that was absolutely the case at wamu. it began to get very bad. all of their issues, um, internally, their internal controls had just fallen apart. at one point they were making mortgages on 12 different systems. they had grown so fast that there was just no be -- no control internally. their mortgage division had ballooned out of control, they had this massive trading desk. they had turned into not a mortgage lender as they were only 15 years earlier when lou was there, but almost a mortgage middleman in which they were sucking up mortgages and spitting them out and making a lot of money in between. so all of this -- they had turned into this just as housing prices, which had been going up astronomically every year, began to crash.

>> uh-huh. >> really began to crash. so suddenly wamu is left with all these, holding all these risky mortgages, and and all the homeowners that could have just refinanced out of those mortgages couldn't anymore because the housing prices weren't there to support it. so suddenly wamu, which had been profitable for how many years at that point, kerry killinger had always delivered amazing returns, they literally were eating away at their capital cushion, and they needed more money. >> watch kirsten grind on the collapse of washington mutual bank tonight at 8 eastern here on c-span2. >> spend the weekend in ohio's state capital, columbus, as booktv, american history tv and c-span's local content vehicles look behind the scenes at the history and literary life of ohio's largest city. on booktv on c-span2, ohio

state university. >> ulysses was published between march 1918 and december 1920, and an american periodical called the little review, and we have copies of all those out today. i wanted not so much to show you this first edition, but to show you a later edition of ulysses that is extremely well. in 1921 the american government declared ulysses obscene and pornographic, and the book was banned. people still wanted to read it, however, and we actually have a copy of one of the pirate editions. and if you notice the spines, we have "alice in wonderland" and "the little minister." >> throughout the weekend and saturday at noon eastern, literary life in columbus, ohio, with booktv and c-span's local don't vehicles on c-span2. >> what are you reading this summer? booktv wants to know. >> it's not so much -- [inaudible] because there's more of a nonfiction focus, but i like to

read thrillers. and i think the one thriller that anyone will pick up and be blown away by is "gone girl." it just came out from crown on -- yesterday, i believe. and the reviews that have already come in from npr, from "the new york times" have been rapturous, and i would have to agree. it's essentially a portrait of a marriage from hell that we learn about because the wife, a woman named amy dunn, disappears. and as first we get her husband nick's perspective, and we also get her perspective in diary format. and it becomes very clear that neither of them are telling the truth, and it's lie upon lie upon lie, and it's incumbent upon the reader to figure out how are they lying, and are they lying to themselves? and it's just, as i described it to friends and also on twitter, it is a --