Parastoo: Stories and Poems

Kimberly Fahner is the author of You Must Imagine the Cold Here.

Born in Hamadan, Iran, Mehri Yalfani immigrated to Canada in 1987. This,
her first English-language book, includes an insightful introduction by
Rivanne Sandler, who observes that “non-traditional Iranian literature
of the twentieth century [has been] committed to social and cultural
(and even political) reform.”

Yalfani’s prose and poetry skilfully convey the frustration,
upheaval, cruelty, and uncertainty experienced by Iranian women. Her
stories offer no resolutions beyond the knowledge that the female
protagonists will go on dealing, as best as they can, with the obstacles
they encounter on a daily basis. Her poems speak with a clarity of voice
that soars above the prose. Especially powerful is a tribute to Homa
Darabi, a physician who set herself on fire to protest the obligatory
wearing of the veil in Iran.

Yalfani’s protagonists are remarkable embodiments of resistance.