Summer 2008
The Art of Fiction No. 197: Interview with Umberto Eco for The Paris Review

INTERVIEWER: Did the war have any impact on your decision to write?

ECO: No, there is no direct connection. I had started writing before the war, independently of the war. As an adolescent I wrote comic books, because I read lots of them, and fantasy novels set in Malaysia and Central Africa. I was a perfectionist and wanted to make them look as though they had been printed, so I wrote them in capital letters and made up title pages, summaries, illustrations. Read More »

Spring 2007
The Art of Fiction No. 192: Interview With Jorge Semprún for The Paris Review

INTERVIEWER: In your books you discuss the paradoxical nature of pleasure as something that might have reconnected you to life after the camp but which in fact drew you back to the memory of death.

SEMPRÚN: Yes, pleasure was, in reality, the complete opposite of oblivion. I could see the shadow of Buchenwald in the gaze of the girls who looked at me after I’d left the camp. And so to me pleasure became, to put it bluntly, a reminder of the life I had stolen from others. The sheer guilt of being in the world, of having survived the collective hell of the camp. Read More »

Read about the New York Public Library presentation of Lila Azam Zanganeh's book, with Shirin Neshat, Lila Azam Zanganeh, Roya Hakakian, Azar Nafisi, (pictured top to bottom here), Sussan Deyhim, Soraya Broukhim and Azadeh Moaveni. This event was co-sponsored by PEN American Center.

A CONVERSATION
Lila Azam Zanganeh, who aims "to corrode fixed ideas and turn cultural and political clichés on their heads" and is editor of My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes: Uncensored Iranian Voices, engaged in a conversation with Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, on the chrysalid of identity politics versus the durable pigments of individual imagination; when politics collide with poetry.

A DISCUSSION
Four Iranian women, Shirin Neshat, Roya Hakakian, Azadeh Moaveni, and Lila Azam Zanganeh, moderator, discussed the problematic notion of Iranian identity: Who are we in these shifting times and how do we devise ways to formulate it? The panel offered these women's perspectives on race, religion, and sexuality in - and in exile from - the Islamic Republic.

A READING
Actress Soraya Broukhim read from the book.

MUSIC
Sussan Deyhim, a Persian vocalist, performed.
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APRIL 9, 2006
Read about the Levantine Center presentation of "Uncensored Iranian Voices" in Los Angeles.

Uncensored Iranian Voices

Over the weekend of April 9, The Levantine Cultural Center hosted several young Iranian intellectuals at Pacific Arts Center. Lila Azam Zanganeh, editor of the Uncensored Iranian Voices anthology, spoke with No god but God author Reza Aslan about the path to peace and democracy in Iran.

Sholeh Wolpé moderated the discussion.