Today, the Italian Embassy in Teheran, with the “Internazionale” and the Iranian magazine “Na Dastan”, held a reading event at the residence of Ambassador Giuseppe Perrone featuring Iranian contemporary literature which was the focus of the special report on the Rome-based magazine’s issue N. 1441 in the week from 23 December 2021 – 5 January 2022.
The event, which took place in hybrid format, was attended by Mohammad Tolouei, Iranian journalist and writer and editor-in-chief of “Na Dastan”, Francesca Gnetti, journalist of the Middle East Section of the “Internazionale”, and translator Giacomo Longhi, in addition to writers Ali Khodai, Mahsa Mohebali, Bita Malakuti, Alieh Atai, Arash Sadeghbeigi, photographer Mozhde Nourmohammadi and cartoonists Maysam Barza and Rambod Khanlari.
The special report was presented by Mohammad Tolouei, who curated the selection of Iranian stories to portray an image of Iran as multifaceted and varied as possible that is mostly unknown among the Italian public through stories by writers who are interlinked by an arc of time that spans from pre-revolutionary Iran, through the Iran-Iraq war and up to our days.
“The stories are all very different from each other – said Ambassador Perrone in opening the event – although they have in common the everyday life of the Iranian middle class. The writers imbue their stories with their individual experiences and growth processes, not only embracing the period in which they grew up but also their origins, like in the case of Afghan-Iranian writer Alieh Atai”.
“What came out is a very truthful and authentic image of contemporary Iran for the enjoyment of the Italian public,” Ambassador Perrone concluded.
The reading event is part of a series of initiatives on Italian and Iranian literature promoted by the Italian Embassy in Teheran aimed at highlighting the historical and literary ties between the two Countries.
Lastly, in addition to presenting the translations of books financed with the contribution of the Italian Foreign Ministry such as the Anthology of Italian Literature by Iman Bassiri and Mehdi Mousavi’s translation of “Il Colibri’” by Sandro Veronesi, this year the Italian Embassy in Teheran is planning a number of initiatives to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Pierpaolo Pasolini with exhibitions and film screenings.
