Memoirs should not turn into novels

Issues raised at the session of reviewing books of "Memoirs of Women and POWs":
At the session of reviewing the book series of "Memoirs of Women and POWs", Mohesen Kazemi said: “We witness an improving move at recording books for women and hope that the fast move does not harm oral history and does not turn memoirs into novels.”
The session of reviewing the book series of "Memoirs of Women and POWs" was held with the presence of Mohsen Kazemi and Seyeed Ghasem Yahosseini, at 25th International Book Fair at Sooreye Mehr stall.
At first pointing to the issue that good books have been published in the field of women and eight years of Sacred Defense, Yahosseini said: “by establishing women oral history unit at the Bureau for the Literature and Art of Resistance at Hozeh-ye Honari (Arts Center) in early 2000s, we entered to the stages of editing and writing books in the field that we should talk about its faults alongside with the successes.
He added: “Right now publishers of memoirs are going toward memoirs’ industry. Because of good interest among the audience toward memoirs, some centers have fallen into the direction of memoirs industry. These publishers think to the quantity rather than quality and they want to boost their sell instead of great records. It's a disastrous matter at writing memoirs. Besides some compilers present imaginary and unreal stories to the audience instead of memoirs and call it memoirs.”
Yahusseini while expressing his regret on lack of publication for "Kamane Zanan (Women’s Bow)" which he has written and submitted to the Art Center a couple of years ago said: “The book was due to be published by Sooreye Mehr some years ago but I haven't got any news on its publish till now.”
The writer explained about the reason of having just a few novels on the fields of Islamic Revolution and eight years of Sacred Defense: “Our country's literary society encounters problems on story writing. The same issue also exists on war and revolution story writing.”
He continued: “Memory comes from the hearts of people so it's interesting for the audience and could be regarded as an independent genre. Although we have good story writers on revolution and war, not being written of these kinds of books is because of lack of necessary cultural atmosphere and its related discourse.”
Yahosseini said: “Novel could reach to its deserved place in society provided that the authors express their ideas with courage and they easily and straightly enter into people's private circle but in the existing conditions these issues are border lines which could not be used in order to write an appealing novel. We hope that with regard to the activities that Sooreye Mehr has done for publishing fine books in the field of novel and story in recent years, 2010s would be the time for the growth and development of these two literary genres.”
Pointing to the high population of women with proportion to men's and their contribution to the culture and various political and cultural arenas, Mohsen Kazemi said: “There is not been any valuable job in written format about women till now that could be introduced as a literary asset.”
He added: “The war phenomenon was configured after revolution. These two events induced many authors to begin writing in this field wherein the issues related to women, as one of the sources of the area was seen and dealt with limitedly. For this reason many stages should be taken in order to write a book on women's memoirs so that it could be turned into a book.”
Kazemi said: “What can be witnessed these days are impaired memoirs which are printed as independent and intact memoirs while analysis and imagination of author has been inserted into them. In a near future when these works would be criticized you will discover they have nothing to present and would be ignored.”
The author of "Ezatshahi Memoirs" said: “It should be thought seriously about these issues and we should consider memoirs as oral records of our country and insert them into stories, novels and imagination. The author should not write a book by processing and creating his own atmosphere which its only purpose would be the audience's interest. Memoirs should not be encompassed by anyone. In fact story tellers could use these works as the source in revolution and war novel after they are published as memoirs.”
While pointing to the presence of women directly and indirectly at revolution and Sacred Defense Kazemi added: “Women have a direct role as rescuers during the war and as declaration distributers during the Revolution. However, the major role that women played was their indirect presence in fronts. The most important cases are suffering hard condition of those times and inspiriting men and members of the family since women are good listeners of revolution and have played a significant role in the hidden layers of revolution and war.”
Kazemi then pointed to the book "Memoirs of Marzieh Hadidchi" as an activist who was active at different groups and suffered prison and then migrated and became a fellow of Imam and said: “She dared to express her memoirs for us. This event caused other women to express their Memoirs. "Khorshid vareh (The Pseudo-sun)" based on Tahereh Sajadchi memoirs is a good book in the field of women memoirs which has been published by the Islamic Revolution Documents Center.”
Then with emphasis on the point which fine books are published when the original message is not destroyed by bad taste of different institutions. He added: "Zeitoneh Sorkh (The Red Olive)" book by Seyed Ghasem Yahosseinini could be turned into a universal book but because of bad tastes the major part of it was deleted.”
Kazemi regarding his books in the field of revolution said: “Maybe one of the rare books on revolution memoirs that woman has no role in it in the outer layer is "Ezatshahi Memoirs" that the narrator only has pointed to his mother in a small part of it. It is interesting for you to know that according to ideas of one of the people in charge at IRIB who especially intended to write a screenplay for the book, a woman had been created in the story by the imagination of the writer, something Mr. Ezatshahi didn't accept.
He added: “Mr. Ezatshahi wanted to keep his historical view to the revolution events. IRIB could produce a good film without the presence of a woman according to these documentations but what made the book successfull was Ezatshahi's simple and frank position at expressing memoirs that he dared to talk about all groups and organizations. But "Memoirs of Ahmad Ahmad" has a different condition compared to “Memoirs of Ezatshahi” and a woman plays a pivotal role in the adventures.”
Kazemi added: “We do witness an evolving move in the field of book writing for women and hope that the fast move does not harm oral history and does not turn Memoirs into novels. Nowadays the presence of women in the field of writing Sacred Defense books as a narrator or writer has become more significant and many interviewers and researcher women extract and grub the major part of war memoirs and make it available to the young generation. But it should be considered that we live in a country which women are confronted with restrictions from the cultural point of view and because of some cultural problems cannot express their memoirs comprehensively”.

Reporter: Akram Dashtban, IBNA
Translator: Atiyeh As’ad