Afarin Majidi’s memoir Writing and Madness in a Time of Terror is a history of hurt. It is also a remarkable testament to overcoming.
In 1979, upper middle-class Iranian women like Afarin Majidi wore French fashions and perfume, smoked in public and generally enjoyed the same social freedoms as western women. Iran was then a kingdom, ruled by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi – the Shah of Iran.
Misogynist female book reviewers prefer self-loathing discussions on James Lasdun’s very important fiction about peeping on black women over my story of being raped. They want to shower him with accolades as a “writer’s writer” for using salmon as symbolism for a dead Asian woman’s vagina. Oh, and don’t forget his description of lady bits as smelling “pungent” (Maybe yours, ladies, but not mine.).
