Censorship, Both Bane and Muse?

Tinoush Nazmjou, the author, director, and theater translator, had spent most of his life in France before returning to Iran in 2001 to experience the Iranian stage. He left Iran eight years later, in 2009, after authorities denied him permission to publicly stage his last two plays. In an interview with IranWire, Nazmjou talks about his enthusiasm for returning to Iran and experimenting with creative work under an atmosphere heavy with limitations.

One of Iran's prominent young directors, he has sought to keep in touch with his audience during his years of absence through an energetic presence on Facebook and Twitter. “Facebook is like performing live theater,” he says. While living in Iran, Nazmjou staged a number of French plays and translated and introduced many plays which had been previously unknown to Iranian audiences. In France he stages Iranian plays with French-Iranian actors. Last year he established Nakoja Publishers, an electronic publishing house that translates foreign books for Iranian readers. He talks to us here about the creative contrast between working freely and under censorship, Iran's theater scene, and how social media is bridging the divide between exiled artists and homeland.

You returned to Iran in 2001 after years of living in France and then abruptly left Iran for France again in 2009. What happened?

The truth is that I had done a lot of theater work in France until 2000, and I really wanted to go to Iran to have new experiences. I met up with several Iranian theater companies from my own generation who had come to perform in France, and talking with them encouraged me to travel back. So I returned to Iran in 2001 and started my work with play translations that I thought would be useful to the Iranian society at the time. These translations quickly connected with Persian speakers. I then started to stage my own work.

But the reason I returned to France again was that performing theater in Iran in recent years was becoming increasingly more difficult, to the point that my last two plays did not receive permission for public staging. I practiced two plays by Matei Visniec and Jean-Luc Lagarce, the text and the acting for both of which were reviewed and granted permission despite restrictions, and I staged them at the Fajr Theater Festival. Despite this, they still weren’t allowed to have public staging later. It got to the point where I either had to accept the restrictions they were imposing or think of something else.

Where do you find it most creatively satisfying to work? Which audience do you connect with most?

When I lived in Iran I always wanted to return to France, and when I’m in France I want to return to Iran. Inside me there lives a rootlessness and a sense of belonging to both cultures.

Do you think you were more successful attracting audiences in Iran or in France?

Success was not the problem. Even though there are no restrictions in France and it’s a lot easier to work there, I prefer the Iranian audience. I was a lot happier when I worked in Iran. Perhaps the reason for this is those very restrictions in Iran. France is a country where the foundation of theatrical revolution has happened, but they say themselves that their theater no longer has a lot to say. Though I am against censorship and restrictions in the arts, I find myself conflicted to see that in a country like France where there are no limitations and you can say whatever you want, it then appears that your message loses importance. But in a country like Iran where there is always danger and red lines and the people in power are watching what you say and may even feel threatened by it, there is more room for making an impact. This is why there is more excitement for the work, too, at least for me this is how it was during the eight years I worked in Iran.

Also, the theater audience in Iran represents all layers of the society, from the lower, middle, and uptown classes, everyone came to the City Theater (Theatre-e Shahr) and this in and of itself is a very attractive.

Having worked in Iranian theater in recent years, do you think the country’s theater scene has matured?

I think many things in Iran revolve around restrictions, whether economic restrictions or restrictions on freedom of expression. These restrictions are like a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they are clearly harmful and hold back our literature and the arts. For years, because of censorship, you can’t see many of the important works that were staged or read books that were published, while the world is moving forward with great speed. Under such circumstances, I don’t believe Iranians are standing still; I think these restrictions are making them regress further and further back. Also, because of economic conditions, Iranian artists have to do other things and would inadvertently lose their focus on their work, and because there is no freedom of expression, they have to constantly compromise and twist their words. And the things they do say in the end are no longer their own words.

But on the other side, these restrictions and impediments create more motivation for some in the field of theater to figure out how to hurdle obstacles and this in itself is beautiful. Many of the scripts sent to me when I worked at Ney Publishing were not good scripts. But some of them genuinely sparkled. I learned that restrictions can serve as the best and the worst things in the world.

During the time you headed the “From All Over the World Desk” at Ney Publishing, you translated several plays by Matei Visniec into Persian, introducing this playwright to Iran. Why did you choose his work,  did you think he was relevant to Iranian society or was it your personal taste?

Well, in the last years I was in Paris before 2000, there was a theater magazine by the name of Utopia, which was Paris’ only theater magazine. We used to go the magazine’s editorial offices every week and discuss one of the plays on stage. That’s where I met Matei Visniec. I like this Romanian author’s view into the playwriting world and the way he structured his stories, and I found his use of Eastern and Iranian philosophy in his works interesting. When I came to Iran, I packed several new plays in my suitcase, some of which were works by this author. My first performance in the Iranian Theater was “The Story Of The Panda Bears Told By A Saxophonist Who Has a Girlfriend in Frankfurt” by this author which was received very well and after that I translated the script into Persian. I believe this play has been re-printed 15 or 16 times in Iran and has taken to stage several times by different directors in the country. My last work in Iran was a play named “The Body of a Woman as A Battlefield in the Bosnian War” by the same author, which the authorities did not allow me to stage.

You established Nakoja Publishing a year ago in France. What is your goal in creating an electronic publishing house?

I wanted Iranians, wherever they are in the world and whenever they want, to have the possibility of reading and becoming acquainted with fresh Persian-language literature. In the first step, myself and other translators try to publish the works of well-known playwrights and novelists which may not be possible to publish in Iran. We translate these works into Persian and make them available to interested Persian speakers. To this end,Nakoja Publishing will translate into Persian and make available some novels from Haruki Murakami, the famous Japanese author whose books are not allowed to publish in Iran because of their content. We are currently translating his latest novel, “IQ84.” Even classic books that have not been translated fall within the framework of our goals. At least in the recent 30 years, 10,000 important books have been published in the world and in Iran we have not even heard their names and our literature has passed them by because it was not possible to publish them, and Iranian readers have not had a chance to know them so far.

Iranians aren’t terribly used to reading books online. How many customers does Nakoja Publishers have? Are most of your users inside or outside Iran?

It may be strange but most of Nakoja’s users are Iranians inside Iran. Even with Internet restrictions and our inability to advertise our organization inside Iran, Iranians inside Iran comprise most of our users. The next group is Iranians who live in the US and Canada, and next the ones who live in Europe. We thought before that because a large group of Iranian intellectuals have emigrated from Iran, most of our readers would be outside Iran but because the recent immigrants are somewhat confused right now or are busy learning a new language, or they may have other preoccupations, they don’t have time to frequent an online publishing house and read books in Persian. Since last year when Nakoja’s activities have started seriously, we have only translated foreign books into Persian. Starting next year, however, we will also add a French language section to it, where recent Persian books are translated into French for our French fans.

How much in sync are Iranian playwrights with their modern counterparts in other parts of the world? Is their work as sophisticated, as adventurous?

As someone involved in the business of publishing and as a director, I'm constantly reading new plays from Iran and other countries. I believe that in Iran we have many good playwrights and writers. It may even be for these same limitations that creative work is constantly born in Iran. I myself read several good pieces each month which have either been performed on stage in Iran, or if it has not been possible to perform them in Iran, they have still managed to reach me and I have read them. For example, Aboutorab Khosravi, a writer whose short story I converted into a play which I performed at the Brussels Theater Festival six months ago, has nothing short of Haruki Murakami’s works. The only difference is that the writer lives in Iran and is a resident of Shiraz and his works cannot be easily translated into other languages. We have a lot of talent like that. In that same Brussels Festival, the works of other playwrights such as Naghmeh Moghisi, Jalal Tehrani, Amir Reza Kouhestani, Mohammad Rezaei Rad, Mohammad Charmshir, and Alireza Naderi were translated into French and performed and I could see that French audiences connected well with them.

Over the years, many Iranian artists have left Iran and have come to countries such as France. How do you view the challenges of the emigre artist?

Immigration is an individual and interior process for everyone. Each of the Iranian intellectuals and artists who left Iran during recent years has a different story. Immigration can be an extraordinary experience; leaving your country, it becomes possible to work, get to know another culture, and live and work in a new place without restrictions. I've seen many artists in recent years who've been able to remove the imaginary barriers that Iranian society had imposed on them and to put them behind.  But I've also seen many who have added new barriers to their already existing ones.

I think every human being has a specific understanding of immigration based on his or her own mentality. We can’t say that the Iranian artist must stay in his country or must leave it. But the artist must view immigration as a new adventure and have the power to destroy himself and build himself anew. Of course it depends on whether he can still create new literature or art works with the new developments. I think in recent years we've had all kinds of immigrants, from defeated ones, artists who came here and became completely passive, or those who were derailed and the quality of their works weren't at all comparable with what they created in Iran. Conversely we've had artists who could destroy themselves and build themselves anew and after that, create very good works. These artists can continue their path in these countries or return to Iran to continue their work. I believe that the Iranian artist’s success in diaspora completely has to do with his strength and internal motivations.

You are one of the rare theater folk who is active in Facebook and your short writings receive many “likes” and comments. How is your relationship with Facebook and how do you use it for interacting with your audience?

I think Facebook and Twitter are good things because as a writer you can always maintain your contact with your audience and be in their lives wherever in the world you are. Your audience can read you and hear from you and vice versa. Most of my work is in Persian and if I didn’t have access to Facebook and Twitter during the four years that I've been outside Iran, I would have grown distant from my society’s current culture. Of course I could have stayed informed through reading books, magazines, and newspaper, but I would have grown distant from the daily cultural life of my people. I believe one of the reasons the relationship between those Iranian artists who left Iran 30 years ago was completely severed with their audiences, leading to their depression and being forgotten, was first because there was no Internet and second because there were no social networks like Facebook. They didn’t have these tools and therefore lost touch with their audience, even though they were still relevant artists.  For them, leaving Iran broke their communication bridges but after four years of living in diaspora, I have still maintained my contact with my Iranian audience.

So you write on Facebook not to be forgotten?

Exactly! Right now all great artists of the world have Facebook accounts. Like performing live theater, I believe writing on Facebook is a live activity, because when a play is in progress, in that moment the audience member reacts to what is happening on stage. His reaction affects the actors and those in the backstage, and again, the actor who has been affected by the audience’s reactions, shows another reaction. This is why I call theater “a live performance.” Likewise on Facebook, you leave a comment that talks of your beliefs and the audience immediately reacts to you.

Do you plan on returning to Iran and working there again after the election of the new president and a possible change in conditions?

Yes. I’d love to go and I definitely have decided to return to Iran. At the first opportunity I find and when Nakoja is at a stage where it can stay on its own feet, I will definitely return to Iran and start work enthusiastically.