Song of a Captive Bird

1.

There s a street where

the boys who were once in love with me,

the boys with tousled hair and lanky legs,

still think about the innocent girl

who was carried away by the wind one night.

from Reborn

It was the end of my girlhood, though I didn t know it yet. If I d realized what would happen there, would I have followed my mother into that room in the Bottom of the City? If I d guessed the purpose of our visit, would I have turned to run before my mother struck the brass knocker against the door? I doubt it. I was sixteen years old and by anyone s account already a troublemaker, but in those moments that my sister and I stood under the clear blue sky of Tehran s winter, I understood nothing about what would soon happen to me and I was much too frightened to break free.

My mother, sister, and I had set out from the house in the morning, wearing veils. This was strange and should have given me pause. My sister and I never wore veils, and the only time my mother veiled herself was at home when she prayed. She had a light cotton veil white with pale-pink rosebuds she wore for her prayers. The garments she handed my sister Puran and me that day were altogether different: black, heavy chadors I usually only saw old women wear.

Put them on, she ordered.

We must be visiting a shrine to atone for my sins; this was the only explanation I could think of for why my mother insisted we cover ourselves up. I pulled the chador over my head and then stood studying my reflection. The girl in the mirror was thin, with pale skin and thick bangs that refused to lie flat under the veil.

I watched as Puran drew the garment over her head. She looked tiny with her body draped in the fabric and only a triangle open for her face. There were dark half-moons of sleeplessness under her eyes and, just beneath her left eye, a bruise.

So she s been punished, too, I thought.

Don t step in the joob! my mother called out as my sister and I jumped clear of

Jasmin Darznik was born in Tehran, Iran, and moved to America when she was five years old. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Good Daughter: A Memoir of My Mother s Hidden Life. Her work has been published in thirteen countries and recognized by the Steinbeck Fellows Program, the Corporation of Yaddo, and the William Saroyan International Prize. Her stories and essays have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in fiction from Bennington College and a Ph.D. in English from Princeton University. Now a professor of literature and creative writing at California College of the Arts, she lives in Northern California with her family.

A complex and beautiful rendering of [a] vanished country and its scattered people, a reminder of the power and purpose of art, and an ode to female creativity under a patriarchy that repeatedly tries to snuff it out. The New York Times Book Review (Editors Choice)

If poetry is emotion rendered incendiary, then Forugh Farrokhzad was made of fire. . . . Song of a Captive Bird is an unsparing account of the necessity and consequences of speaking out. BookPage
 
Sometimes, simply choosing whom to love is a political act. Vogue 

Forugh Farrokhzad s short life brimmed with controversy and rebellion . . . .This feminist icon inspired Darznik s imaginative debut. Ms.

Sumptuously captures a fierce and turbulent life, as well as a vanished country swept away by revolution. Newsweek

A stunning and powerful debut . . . At a time when our country is at war with art and women, this courageous book is required reading. Bret Anthony Johnston, author of Remember Me Like This
 
A thrilling and provocative portrait of a powerful woman set against a sweeping panorama of Iranian history. Kirkus Reviews
 
Written with the urgent tenderness of a love letter, this soaring novel is a heart-breaker and heart-mender at once a gorgeous tribute to the brave and brilliant poet remembered in its pages. Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage and Silver Sparrow
 
These are times for stories that bring one culture nearer to another, and that is exactly what Jasmin Darznik has done, pulling close the hearts of girls and women and poets to tell Forugh Farrokhzad s remarkable story. Laleh Khadivi, author of A Good Country
 
Farrokhzad is known as the Sylvia Plath of Iran, and the two poets were contemporaries, living lives at once starkly different and remarkably attuned, then dying young and tragically. Plath s renown is universal; Darznik s enthralling