BOOKER SHORTLIST HONOUR
GEELONG AUTHOR NAMED AMONG WORLD’S BEST:
EVER since she was a child, Shokoofeh Azar has been following her inner voice.
As a teenager in Tehran, she was inspired by the awardwinning authors of the day.
“I was a great reader,” she said.
“My father was a writer, poet and artist and our house had lots of books. I read authors who had won the Booker or Pulitzer Prize. They were very inspiring to me.”
Azar might soon count herself among some of the authors who inspired her growing up.
The talented Geelongbased writer and her anonymous translator have been short-listed for the 2020 International Booker Prize for her novel The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree.
Azar said the novel, a reimagining of the 1979 Islamic revolution and its aftermath, is written in the magical realism style of classic Persian storytelling.
“As you grow up, you find your inner voice but don’t share it with other people,” she said.
“I wanted to write this inner voice down so I didn’t forget it. As I kept writing, I wanted to share it.”
Azar’s own journey to literary success has been filled with twists and turns growing up against the backdrop of the 1979 revolution.
She worked as a journalist for an independent newspaper covering social affairs.
Azar said she was forced to change offices after they were raided and was arrested several times — including a stint spent in isolation. “I’ve been arrested three times and thrown in jail. Many of my colleagues fled Iran after the 2009 protests,” she said.
Azar came to Australia as a political refugee and was granted citizenship in 2017.
It has been a struggle to publish the book in Iran as well. Unwilling to subject her novel to Iranian censorship, Azar found an underground publisher to distribute the work.
“They tell me the book is selling very well,” she said.
“Writing a story without any censorship in Iran is very difficult. I think it got their attention.”
Written in her native Farsi, the novel’s translator couldn’t be named for security reasons.
“My story was written in poetic rhyme and normally the translating of this story would be difficult, but the translator did it so well,” she said.
“We couldn’t use their name because of safety reasons. If they returned to Iran and they knew who it was, they could be arrested.”