Description

Thanks to her fluent language, Faribā Vafī manages to create a close proximity to the characters, which is also conveyed without restriction in the congenial translation. Her stories repeatedly deal with tensions between tradition and progressiveness, between loneliness and the desire for independence. In her works, Vafī traces the complexity of human relationships, which is universal and resonates with readers beyond linguistic and social boundaries.

On November 11, 2021, Vafī spoke in the deed gallery with Maryam Aras about her understanding of literature and read from her new book of stories. You can have the conversation yourself here watch in full length.

press reviews

Here, another story is told very subtly and against all clichés of the archaic theocracy, one that certainly does not only touch those who had to endure a dictatorship from within.

– Sabine BerkingFAZ

Those who do not read Vafī's books are missing out on great literature.

– Gerrit Wustmann, Fixpoetry

 Neither personally nor literary does Fariba Vafī fit into the drawers, neither into the Iranian nor into the European ones.

– SAID

Vafī's stories are mostly close-ups of social relationships, in which women confront the expectations that family and society place on them and go their own way. They are dense, allusive microcosms that indirectly negotiate a political context. Vafī's precise language and her special eye for interpersonal understanding and misunderstanding create complex scenes that can often be funny despite their seriousness. Continue reading

– Maryam Aras, Die Presse

From such strong biMany of the tales live in ldren. They are for this reason – with all local localization – as powerful as it is universal at the same time. and sie sappeal to women all over the world. keep listening

– Claudia Kramatschek, SWR2

Fariba Vafi tells her stories alternately from the perspective of mothers and daughters and thus her and the new generation. Family obligations, traditional rituals and social conventions are often an enormous burden for the younger ones. Most of the time they are aware of their darn situation and also know that they can't take it any longer. But they are not thinking of a fundamental change. They simply do not dare to discard customs and break out of confining circumstances. Continue reading

– Fahimeh Farsaie, IranJournal

Iranian author Fariba Vafi aspires to create female figures and make voices audible that would otherwise remain silent. It is certainly also the authors of their generation who paved the way for younger women to articulate themselves openly. keep listening

– Gabie Hafner, radio program of the Munich church radio

On social media

Her observations of interpersonal relationships are razor-sharp, bitterly angry and sometimes extremely humorous. She dissects family power relations in particular with such ease that one does not know where the seriousness ends and the humor begins. In the field of tension between female emancipation and patriarchal structures, Vafī illuminates women (destinies) who rarely find a voice in public and are rarely heard. Vafī makes the intimacy of these human encounters a public political issue without being accusatory. Continue reading

– That (@echo_books)

The stories that won the Ahmad Mahmud Prize deal with family and society. Observe razor-sharp interpersonal and make the seemingly invisible visible. She moves in the smallest of spaces, in a room, in the family, even in a prison cell, and dissects what she has experienced with great precision using subtle language. Her choice of words is apparently simple, but artfully interwoven, resulting in an individual sound that transports universal feelings. Continue reading

– Nantke (@coffeecakesandbooks)