According to Cinema Etemad, Shabnam Kohnchi wrote in Etemad newspaper: They have written a lot about Ebrahim Golestan; A person who was three years old at the time of the extinction of the Qajar dynasty. As a teenager, he witnessed many events and developments, such as the change of the currency of Iran from the Qur’an to the Rial, the discovery of the mandatory hijab, the arrest of 53 political prisoners, among whom Bozor Alavi was one of them, and… Golestan’s youth coincided with World War II, the occupation of Iran. From the Soviet Union and England, the Tudeh party was founded and… he was 25 years old when he wrote his first story. Golestan was at the beginning of middle age in the brilliant era of Iranian literature, i.e. the forties. He lived in England from 1957 until the end of his life. A few words from him in his conversation with Parviz Jahid have remained in my mind for years: “Your country is your intellectual matter.” It is your spiritual problem. The homeland is a psychological formula, the homeland is the development and continuation of your feelings and interest… If you want to know my interest about the country, read the first chapter of Asrar Ganj Dareh Jeni or the introduction to the book of Sayings. On the first anniversary of the death of Ebrahim Golestan, we talked about this writer with Qazi Rabihawi, a storyteller and playwright.
**** You were a close friend of Mr. Golestan. Of course, you have a lot to say about them.
It is difficult to talk about someone who has been talked about so much by others and who himself has participated in countless conversations and talked about everything, and there was less talk about literature. On the other hand, it is difficult for me to talk about the works of art of a friend who was kind to me and I had good and happy times in his presence, because he used to say funny things. Especially in mocking Farsi-language media. I got to know him and his works in several courses. When I was a teenager, like many Iranian literature enthusiasts, I thought he was a powerful storyteller and a great filmmaker; But in my twenties, when I came back to read and see his works, I realized that the intensity of it was a lot of fantasy and a little bit imposed from the press and newspapers of the previous generation. Although I would send him my new works or his son Kaveh, who was my friend, would take my newly published books to him, and he would always send me a very helpful and kind letter about those stories and encourage me to write. The next period was a few years after I immigrated to England, and I met him and formed a friendship due to common interests.
What do you know about Golestan’s youth?
In his twenties, he had a good job in the oil company in his hometown of Abadan, he was in charge of the public relations of the oil company, which was important, because it was the formation period of an important industrial city, and according to himself, he had spent the best period of his life there.
**** You said about your common interests; What interests did you have in common?
One of our favorite topics was the conversation about his dead son Kaveh, who was my close friend in the sixties and seventies and the producer of several films with my stories. Another common interest of ours, which was very valuable to me, was going to the theater and watching the best works that came to the theaters in London. We used to see plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Painter. The last play we saw together was “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett. During this period, I got to know his last wife, Ashraf Esfandiari, and I realized that his biggest chance was the possibility of living a long life with this kind lady, whom we called Eshi Jan, and I realized after some time that she left Iran with the intention of living in England. He had left, he was a man with a self-inflicted wound and a heavy burden on his shoulder, but luck had helped him meet Ashi to ease his pain a little. Usually, the people who went to his house did not see the importance of the presence of that woman in the life of that “famous” man, but I saw that the most important woman in his life was this woman and not what people imagine from afar.
Considering that you were a close friend of Mr. Golestan for the last 40 years, I want to ask about his latest stories. Did Mr. Golestan become less skilled in writing stories during the last years of his life? Or do they have stories that will be published?
As far as I know, no new story about him has been published for years and decades, even when he was in Iran. The Rooster book was also written in the forties. He was usually writing, but not writing stories. Honestly, in his life, he has written only a few works that are related to his youth. Of course, he wrote many things during his stay in England, but I don’t know if any stories were written among them. I have not seen any stories from him and if he had written something as a story, it would have been published, just as his miscellaneous writings have been published.
**** Somewhere you said “I am not the writer of heroes, but the writer of failed people in society.” The gender of your narrators can be defined in this sentence; But regarding the narrators of Mr. Golestan’s stories, I don’t think this definition should be misguided: “a mythical self, someone who looks at society from a high position.” It seems that the narrators in Mr. Golestan’s stories do not change much and are of the same gender.
Thank you for taking such a look at my work. Your view is also correct. My writings are different from his writings. I have not yet written a story about myself. Probably because I was not an important and attractive character. I have been a writer for people who needed to make their voices heard, but were not able to. People I knew and loved and knew their pain. Humans who are unintentionally stuck in a difficult situation and their reaction to that situation; But most of his writings are about himself. I do not understand the meaning of using the word “myth” in your question, although I know that these days this word is repeated from all sides without its meaning being clear; In a country where both Cyrus the Great is a legend and Nasser Malek Matiei. The burden of these miseducations is usually from the “masters” of that region. Back to your question. Yes; Although you ask this question cautiously, I understand that you want to hear something other than the clichés you’ve heard before. I agree with what you have in mind. His writings, which many call stories, are writings about himself. Like today, when people take selfies and publish them, and in this way, they make themselves happy and satisfied with how good I am and the best of all. It can be said a kind of self-therapy. His writings are often like this. Of course, in the beautiful language and the power of Persian writing, which I have not yet seen in the writers or translators of Iran. Therefore, his most important works are neither his books nor his films, but his masterpieces are his translations. His translation of the play “Don Juan in Hell” written by George Bernard Shaw is a masterpiece of Persian translation. What made me bring it to the theater stage in London was first the respect for this translation and reintroducing it to Persian speakers. Words and phrases follow each other in the most beautiful way without straying from their original form in the English language. The text itself is very beautiful and fresh. Fortunately, it was a good performance and made him, who was known for strictness, satisfied and happy. I will return to the description of his stories. As you say, the description of the narrator’s view from above and the description of his consciousness was against the situation and consciousness of others. In his own words, I have sometimes written stories with the intention of cursing a specific person. If you search in some of his stories, this will become clearer, and he of course wanted to reach the truth in this way, unlike Sadiq Hedayat, who approached the truth from the destruction of the narrator’s character and even the humiliation of the narrator, and you say that his view of the society is from the top down. I must say that this is not a look at the society, but at individuals, at people whom he did not like, and this look with anger was sometimes at the party members who were angered by him after leaving it.
**** In your opinion, which writers were influenced by Mr. Golestan?
I have not seen traces of his work in the work of any writer yet. Perhaps the first reason is that his stories are about himself. Second, due to the lack of a specific technique of modern stories and the absence of drama in them. The characters of his stories do not interact with each other in any way, it is just a narrator who has become an opponent of others with a one-person speech. This does not include all of his stories. It also has beautiful works and different stories that are rare and the instinctive power of a capable writer is evident in them. But he often has the same style of writing in the form of narratives that are unique to him. Therefore, it is impossible to imitate and even continue. The next reason is his use of beautiful and precise Persian prose, from which one can learn a lot, but few people have paid attention to this point, although they have said and written many false and clichéd things about him, and I, of course, learned a lot from his Persian writing, but from Technique and from his point of view to the category of story, no. His stories have not had anything surprising for me except the correct use of the Persian language. I must add that he had read many books and had a very good memory in recalling what he had read, but these readings and knowledge are not present in his created works and can only be heard in his miscellaneous words.
**** I will skip Mr. Golestan’s prose in this conversation, because it has been talked about a lot. I want you to tell me more about your encounter with them.
Among the important things I remember from him is the book of the play “The Tragedy of a Kingdom” which was written at his suggestion and guidance. He said that an Iranian writer should do this, and I wrote this play for more than two years under his guidance, then he gave me an award. A pair of black leather shoes that are still my best shoes. But I will tell you a memory about him. My phone rang; He was Did I say yes? He said Mr. Rabihawi, are you still breathing? I said yes, unfortunately. He said why unfortunately? I said, don’t give up, I have to repeat this boring work 24 hours a day. He said don’t worry, it will end eventually. I said that the good thing is that I know this. He said that he only wishes that this end is not on the hospital bed, but in your own bed. I said it doesn’t get better than this. He said, “When do you want to come here to watch your tree?” What he said means that he misses talking about Kaveh, because I had planted an olive tree named Kaveh in his yard. I said when? He said you should ask Ashi about this. I asked and a few days later I went to his house. From the balcony facing the yard, one could see the Kaveh tree. He said that you made a mistake by taking it out of the pot and putting it on the ground. I said that they say there is a place for a tree in the ground, sir. He said, “Who said it, he said it spontaneously, you repeat what others say, it’s not always like that, sometimes the tree in the pot is better and more cheerful.” I said I didn’t know. He said if the pot is big enough. Then he stared at the tree for a while and said Kaveh was born in Abadan. He had said this many times. I said I didn’t know. He said, but he was still a child when we kicked him out. I said, anyway, he always considered himself an Abadani and he took very good photos from there during the war. He said that he had taken enough photos from there and from the war, what else did he need to be in the middle of the war at that age? He went crazy, that’s why I couldn’t cry for him. silence And I could see some of his eyelashes getting wet. He said, why should I cry for someone who found out how to die? He knows better than anyone where he is. And I saw other eyelashes getting wet. He said that he was not a child for whom I should cry. And the first drop fell on his cheek. He said that he was a man in his fifties, and he knew that the fate of blinking in a war zone would be the same. I also saw the second drop. He said that if he preferred to die like this, who are we to cry for him? Dripping the third drop on the cheek. I said, sir, they are showing Waiting for Godot in London. Did he say in Alameda? He loved the Almeida Theater more than any other theater in London, and we had seen several Shakespeare plays there together. I said no, it’s not in Alameda, it’s in a small theater in our neighborhood, Hackney neighborhood. He said that Hackney neighborhood has changed a lot. I said for what time should I get a ticket. He said you should ask Ashi about this. I asked, and when I got home I booked three tickets for one for the much anticipated Godot show in Hackney two weeks later. And that was the last show that ended our many-year tradition of seeing the theater together in London.
**** At the end of this conversation, is there anything you would like to mention?
Here, I would like to give a recommendation to today’s generation, that they should not trust what others from the previous generation have told them and written in publications. I always said look back with doubt. That is, doubt what the generations before you have told you, because it is not clear that their standards about art and famous people were reasonable. On the other hand, I once saw people who came to his house without reading anything about him and didn’t bother to watch any of his movies, but they went to his house just to take some pictures with him in his “palace” and publish on their own internet pages to pretend to others that I am also his friend and they did not think that this is not an honor, but rather self-humiliation, but they were satisfied with this. It should be asked that if he was not a famous rich man and did not live in a palace or if he was not associated with important famous people according to fanciful stories, would he still be so popular? Or the issue of his relationship with a famous poet who had such an effect on his fame and popularity? So my advice is to not blindly accept everything that was valuable to the previous generation and instead be curious to understand the truth. They should look at the values and criteria of the past with suspicion and if they are interested in knowing the works of the past, they should re-read and re-examine them while maintaining their modern values and criteria.