Hoshang Moradi Kermani says: Whether in the past or the present, I move in the middle. The only book of mine that got some success and didn’t get a license and stayed for a long time until someone intervened, was the book “The Children of the Carpet Factory”, which they thought was communist, but later they realized that it had nothing to do with the left or communism.
to report cinema cinemaShabnam Kohnchi wrote in Etemad newspaper: If she was sitting next to me while writing this introduction, she would have said, “What you are writing is a kind of salt shaker.” He must have said it with the same accent and sweet laugh, as his shoulders fell and his eyes looked like a smile. I have no doubt that even now, when he is reading this article, he has the same smile on his face and eyes. A man who comes from the desert but does not have the dryness of the desert. Everything is hot. From any angle you look at him, he is not sharp, he is soft and kind, and his sense of humor makes you tire him, because in hanging out with him, you may never get to “goodbye time”. Everyone knows him by “Majid”, “Bibi”, “Isfahan”, “Hoshu”… I think he, Hoshang Moradi Kermani, is a living story, an endless geography of stories. Writing an introduction or, as he says, a “salt shaker” on a conversation lasting several hours, is a difficult task. What you are reading below is a short part of our conversation on one of the most polluted and coldest days in Tehran. The full text of the conversation will soon be published in the “Trust” yearbook.
I will start from the era when your writing was at the same time as fiction writing like Gholamhossein Saedi, Golshiri, etc. How did this coincidence affect you and your works? What was your relationship with these writers? What books were you reading at that time?
Yes, by the way, Saedi and I used to write together. I read heavy books; The books of Hedayat, Chekhov…Sadegh Hedayat wrote feelings with all his heart. I learned illustration and climate writing from Sadegh Chubak, whom I was a big fan of, and I also wrote about my relationship with Chubak in a book. Of course, others have to recognize, but there is a possibility that I read the works of great authors and made them childish for myself, not that you could say that I wrote them for children. I never wrote anything for children, I write for myself. Regarding communication with writers, I must say that I did not participate in writers’ circles or participated very little. I was a member of the Writers’ and Journalists’ Syndicate, but I never followed the Writers’ Union.
Why?
To be honest, I’m a timid person and I’m not one bit of a handy person. Whether in the past or the present, I move in the middle. The only book of mine that got some success and didn’t get a license and stayed for a long time until someone intervened, was the book “The Children of the Carpet Factory”, which they thought was communist, but later they realized that it had nothing to do with the left or communism.
According to the testimony of many readers of your works, critics and writers, the story of “The Children of the Carpet Factory” is considered one of your most bitter works. At that time, almost at the same time as Children of the Carpet Factory, other works such as the collection of stories “Who to greet?” Simin Daneshvar was also published. A series of stories that have a bitter and sad atmosphere. In those days, Iranian society was turbulent, sometimes hopeless and often angry and bitter. How much was the atmosphere of the carpet weaving children affected by the events of the fifties?
I can honestly say that I was very inspired by Sadegh Chubak in the book Children of the Carpet Factory and he had a great impact on me. I did not write a single sentence in his name. Chobak was my favorite Iranian writer. Regarding writing this story, I must say that besides the impact I mentioned, on the other hand, while working, I was faced with the fact that our neighbor’s little girl was paralyzed, and they said that this happened in the carpet factory. On the other hand, in the introduction of the book, I have also said that I was very afraid of the carpet factory because it was located in a hollow, everything was damp and the sound of the grump-grump of the carpet comb was echoing in it. I was also threatened by my grandmother, who always said, “I’ll put you in the coat (hole) of the carpet weaving factory so that you know the value of life.” For me, the carpet factory was a terrible prison. At the time of writing the story, I used to go and sit next to the carpet weavers and what I saw also affected me; I remember the movement of hands and sitting and dark scenes and it is strange to me that this book still has readers; Today’s generation is so different. Just yesterday, at the request of a teacher, I signed thirty copies for a school in the north of the city. I said this book is poison, don’t give it to children, they said they like it. This book is coming up with the generation, because it is not ideological and the subject and means of the story still exist; Carpets and rug weaving. If I was writing about something that was out of date, it wouldn’t last that long. What the intellectuals write is about an incident that happened now, and if this period passes and disappears, the subject matter of the writing will also disappear. Writers are in a hurry to write and want to say everything, and some of them like to be seen, to be heroes.
Personally, I think that children’s literature in Iran is a few steps ahead of adult literature. In children’s literature, we have been nominated several times for the Little Nobel and other important literary prizes of the world, we have been encouraged, we have received awards; You yourself were twice nominated for an award and encouragement. In your opinion, what is the status of children’s and adult literature in Iran?
What has happened and few people have mentioned it, and I am raising this issue for the first time, is that adult literature is harmed because of this, the people of countries like Iran until someone who supports the people and writes about them is not impressed. They are not accepted as authors. Authors are looking for an opportunity to promote their works and themselves as authors. So they start to write and journal quickly. Such stories have no depth. There are very few stories that do not have a political charge and have remained in Iranian literature. Look at Suvshun’s novel or Golshiri’s works or Al-Ahmad’s works, which are all over the newspaper, according to Dr. Amirhossein Arianpour. Political orientation hurts literature because you have to give slogans, talk, move, eat stamps… One of my favorite novels is “Shazde Ehtjab” by Houshang Golshiri, because it has first-class prose and because it is an old story, it is lively. I enjoyed everything I read about Al-Ahmad because of his prose, telegraphic prose or, as Jamalzadeh says, cut sentences. But out of all his works, I really like only one of his works and that is the book “Sangi Ber Goor” which has no political color. Children’s literature is not affected by the issue of political orientation. It’s just a little black fish story with stories behind it. However, many do not know the author of children’s literature as a writer, but as a storyteller. We live in a period where several things have happened; One is animal-loving, one is the small number of children who can be seen well, and the other is the Persian language, which is rapidly going backwards. We speak the language of translation. I read in a column and see that it is written several times “while…”, we have dancers, we cry, we have laughs… why do you write “while…” instead. On the other hand, things are made by people. Maybe I am the last person who is so biased towards Persian language.
Leaving aside the works of the 40s and 50s, do you still see the problem of political orientation in adult literature?
Adults always wanted to write something that would pull something out of the middle to say to their fans, yes, we are fighters. I have no objection to this. I’m not the only one.
Have you ever had a political orientation?
never Look, my old house is becoming a story house; Which living writer’s house had such a fate? Because I have never eaten a political stamp and I will never eat it. The service that “children’s literature” has given me is that the political label does not stick to me. Among the ideologues, it was only Ehsan Tabari who wrote a one-page note about the children of the carpet factory and somewhere in the note he wrote that you are the author, and under the author, he underlined three times and said that you wrote one of the problems of Iranian workers without wanting to partisan, and This story will last. On the other hand, my position is that we are all in a room full of windows and I am the one who likes to look through all these windows. In my stories, there are all looks.
With these interpretations, can we say that children’s and adolescent writers are more storytellers than adult literature writers?
yes They tell a story in the full sense. They don’t want to tell the child what kind of ideology to have or why you have this thinking! Of course, unfortunately, this happened in the textbooks at one time and Majid’s stories were omitted. By the way, the wrong place was touched. It was added where the child is driving towards Isfahan in the car and is tired and bored, so he performs ablution and prays. I told the minister that the worst place to pray is right here; You are tired, you are bored, you don’t know what to do. I also have prayers in Majid’s stories; Somewhere Majid set fire to the house in children’s games, now he wants to apologize, when? where Bibi is praying, Majid takes a stick with him and puts it next to the mat and says punish me with this, and Bibi is as if he came back from heaven and looks at an orphan who is waiting for punishment. The place of prayer is there. If you want to show the prayer, then print it. Why are you adding anything to the story without permission? At that time, three stories had been changed. One is my story, another is a story by Nader Ebrahimi and another is a translation of an American story. Why this happens is because sometimes even families want this.
how about
[…] . We are used to cooperating with those we may not like […] They say, go get a hat, we’ll go and get a hat.
I think that during the years you wrote, the children of your works changed along with you and your stories. They went from a situation where they had no right to live and were pre-sold by their parents even before they were born, they were alone and poor and hungry, they were subjected to violence and abuse, they came to a place where they started to fight against prejudices and superstitions. A little later, even with intelligence, they claimed the right. How consciously did you lead this course of change?
I didn’t do it on purpose. My mind has grown and I have become the same size. I grew up and I wear my size. Regarding the story that fights with superstition, I must say that it is a serious matter; Whatever you believe, your belief will both answer you and create enmity. You fall in love with your own belief so much that you want to fight with the belief of others and make them your own. In continuation of your opinion, I read a review that wrote that when Moradi wrote Majid’s stories, he represented this generation. At that time, my topic was not children, it was humor and I wanted children to laugh. Even get to know the opposite sex. Majid wants to give her photo. The girl next door has grown up and her needs are getting bigger. In the book of Nakhl, I got a lot of questions and answers because of Murad and Golrokh in Irshad, I had placed one on one side of the wall, where a child’s charity goes and sings a lullaby, and the other carries a bag on the other side of the wall. Of course, cinema gave me this image. I am a movie lover and I have seen more than 4 or 5 thousand movies. For 20 years, I was a judge of Roshd Festival. I was the judge of children and teenagers festival five or six times. I know what can be done with the image. Another critic also wrote that Moradi Kermani’s stories are snowballs; The snowball is on top of a mountain and as it rolls it gets bigger and bigger until it hits the middle of the road; A jam jar won’t open… it’s a snowball. Returning to your opinion and question, what happened to the children of your fictional world? Because I grew up and because I write myself, I wrote my life. Look at all the stories, you’ll see me. I remain like an actor and change my clothes in every story. Tazami played very well, but he has a lot of himself everywhere, he makes the game his own. Of course, I like Behrooz Wathoqi more who tries to become his character. In this context, there is division in the world; Some people like Brecht work and sometimes get out of the role, but others like Stanislavski don’t; You are gone and you are alone and you have no choice. I am between Brecht and Stanislavski. These are all my stories and I am present in all of them.
The women in your stories are very dependent on the family in a closed and generally patriarchal environment despite the violence and suffering. How do you look at the female characters in your stories?
I didn’t have a woman in my life. I was a child when my mother died. I didn’t have a sister and I lived in a house with a bigoted, religious and strict old woman. There was no intimate woman close to me except my aunt. However, I must say that I am the second author to have a woman in all my stories. Regarding her feelings and her attachment to her family, I have to say that I love the “woman” because of her motherly love. I look at every woman as a mother first. I am still jealous of children whose mother is with them.
Unlike the children, the women in your stories did not change. As if they did not grow.
Women are in their own place and do their own work. In my stories, women are guests. The guests who have come to shape the story, to give affection, to give a motherly feeling. The issue of children is different. In the past, we had three places to write stories and make films: home, school, street; But now every child has a world in his pocket. So we should grow up as well. Women have come to help me tell my story. Everywhere in all the stories, these are the women who help me tell the story. An example is Khavar in the story of Khamra.