Forough Farrokhzad in Paris Review, by Joanna Scutts, 2020.
“In 1954, a nineteen-year-old poet walked unannounced into the office of the literary editor of Roshanfekr (The Intellectual), one of Iran’s most prestigious magazines. Her fingers were stained with green ink, and she trembled with nerves as she handed over three poems. One of them, the twelve-line “Sin,” described in explicit detail her affair with the magazine’s editor in chief. Different translations give different nuances to the opening of the poem: “I have sinned a rapturous sin / in a warm enflamed embrace” (Sholeh Wolpé), or “I have sinned, a delectable sin, / In an embrace which was ardent, like fire” (Hasan Javadi and Susan Sallée) or “I sinned / it was a most lustful sin / I sinned in arms sturdy as iron, / hot like fire and vengeful” (Farzaneh Milani). Across these variations, there are a few scandalous constants: the heat, the embrace, the pleasure, and the boldly unashamed I. The speaker declares herself as a sinner, but there is no repentance in the poem, no punishment. She is not her lover’s victim, but a joyous coconspirator, exhilarated by her power to arouse him: “Lust enflamed his eyes, / red wine trembled in the cup, / my body, naked and drunk, / quivered softly on his breast” (Wolpé).”
J’ai péché, péché dans le plaisir, Abnousse Shalmani, Grasset, 2024.
Dans ce roman puissant et subtil, au rythme effréné, Abnousse Shalmani met en regard les vies extraordinaires de ces deux écrivaines [Forough Farrokhzad, Marie de Régnier] qui firent toujours le choix de la passion, amoureuse, poétique ou purement sensuelle, au risque de s’en brûler les doigts. Une ode très contemporaine à la liberté artistique et à celles qui ne renoncent jamais, en Occident comme en Orient.
Shalmani also essayist. On Laïcité, 2023.
