Skip to main content

INTERVIEW ‘A comfortable cradle for queerness’

DR GOLNOOSH NOUR Talks to Fran Lock about her new book of short stories, which challenge conventional views of Iran and its sexualities

FRAN LOCK: IT HAS always seemed bizarre and slightly suspect to me that wherever in the world Western political interventions are at their most militaristic, swingeing and destructive, we develop a directly proportionate appetite for the literature of those nations. There’s a tendency in literature to simultaneously exoticise and assimilate the places and peoples it fixates on. As someone born in Tehran, how conscious are  you of writing back against this tendency to homogenise and make a fetish of Iran in your new book The Ministry of Guidance and Other Stories?

GOLNOOSH NOOR: Hamid Dabashi and several other Iranian scholars have discussed this issue in depth. Since America’s “war on terror,” there has been a significant rise in the publication of literature by Iranian women in the West and these books often have a formula that comfortably confirms the Western right-wing narrative of Iran, in which everything Iranian is dreadful and problematic unlike everything Western, that is ideal and liberating.

Farzaneh Milani coined a term to define this literary subgenre as “hostage narrative,” generalising and simplifying Iranian women as victims, thereby dismissing their contributions to Iranian culture. I was very aware of this. All the characters in these books are heteronormative. So, my book, I hope, is also a reaction against the heteronormative and monolithic portrayals of Iran and its sexualities.

One of the joys of this collection is that you present an image of Iran, and also of queer identity, that is characterised by multiplicity, polyphony and contradiction. Is there something about the short-story form that makes it ideally suited for the transmission of queer narratives in particular?

For this specific book, I felt that it was the most suitable form. I wanted to represent as many Iranian queers in depth as possible but also, the famous definition that Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick offers of queerness that [it] is an “open mesh of possibilities.”

I feel the same way about short story as a form. In this sense, the short story provides a comfortable cradle for queerness.

What does the notion of queerness means to you and where do you see yourself in terms of building and contouring a modern queer canon?

One of the most wholesome definitions of queerness has been provided by Sarah Ahmed in her seminal book Queer Phenomenology. She says that anything that disrupts is queer and anyone practising non-normative sexualities is queer as they disrupt heteronormative structures.

I myself identify as queer and all my protagonists in The Ministry of Guidance and Other Stories are queer. They express a lot of same-sex desires but also other desires that can’t be defined by mainstream discourses. Jonathan Kemp says queer is about “not simply imitating the norm but exploring alternatives.” I think this is a great place to start.

The queer canon has always existed. In fact, I believe most good art is queer — it is a never-ending and ever-expanding canon, an open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances, and I am floating in it too if I’m lucky.

Reading the stories Soho and Oshima, I am reminded that a queer feeling of “otherness” is also a feeling that attends exile. Your stories intertwine queerness and migrancy in intricate and moving ways but even when your protagonists are speaking from their native place they often seem divided and estranged. Is there something of the perpetual exile in all of we queers?

There is definitely a sense of exile in queerness, especially considering that queerness by its very definition does result in “otherness” and being “otherised.” But, partly, it is self-exile too, which isn’t necessarily a sorrowful place.

I think there can be joy and strength in exile, in staying away from societal norms, to question them, to escape them. And to be proactive about it, rather than passively exiled. So, although there is sorrow in exile, I also think there is hope and joy.

Queerness also figures in your work as a scene of solidarity. How has the notion of a queer community – or communities – shaped your identity as a writer?

I’m incredibly grateful for the queer communities both in Tehran and in London, not just as a writer but as a nonconformist individual.

At the same time, I believe it’s important to know that community is not the only thing we need. Communities tend to create their own hierarchies. So, I think that as queers we also need a lot of solitude, self-love, and individuation. As the great Audre Lorde argues, for queers, especially queers of colour, caring for oneself is a “political act of warfare.”

The luxury of not being political is something a number of the protagonists in The Ministry of Guidance and Other Stories struggle with, yearning for a time and place where queer people will be granted the freedom to desire without being crudely politicised. Do you believe this place and time exists — can it ever exist, and how do these tensions influence your choices as a writer?

I agree with Jonathan Kemp that being queer is “inherently political” so no, unfortunately, there is no escape from politics with a capital P during these highly politicised times. Being queer is still one of the most political positions one can occupy.

I do think, if we keep fighting, there will be a time and place when people can honestly express their non-normative sexual desires without being bashed or politicised. But, at the moment, we have a long way to go. That’s why, I believe, queer visibility is vital. I hope I am creating a lot of queer visibility with my literary endeavours as well as by my very existence.

A theme of equal weight and importance and productive of some of the most poignant and well-realised moments in this collection, is family. How has your own sense of family shaped your writing, both the short stories and your poetry?

I think I am lucky because I have a rather unconventional family. I never really learned to take gender roles very seriously, even though I was born and raised in an extremely gendered country. My parents didn’t really abide by the usual gender norms and they were just fine, and they didn’t try to suffocate my natural tendencies either. For that alone, I shall always be grateful to them.

I think my lack of respect for gender roles and norms comes across quite strongly, both in my personality and my writing. My partner, who is also a writer, inspires me a lot and we’ve fought a lot of homophobia and racism to be together. These are also recurring themes in my work.

Poetry is a constant presence in your stories. Has it been influential in fostering your own sense of queer identity?

I cannot imagine my life without poetry. Poetry has definitely strengthened me both as a writer and an individual. Lorde is right — for marginalised voices, poetry is a necessity. From a technical point of view, even prose writers need to learn poetry and read poetry even if they don’t have the desire to write it.

Poetry is where language can be at its most polished, its most beautiful and its most revolutionary. I do not trust writers who say they have no interest in poetry.

For me, writing short stories and poetry are two very different modes of being. My poetry erupts, whereas that is not the case at all with my short stories [which I] meticulously plot before writing.

With a poem, I have no idea where it’s taking me, a poem has its own force, direction and destination.

Dr Golnoosh Nour lectures at Birkbeck College, London and the University of Bedfordshire. The Ministry of Guidance and Other Stories is published by Muswell Press, price £7.99, muswell-press.co.uk and her poetry collection Sorrows of the Sun was published by Skyscraper Publications in 2017. Fran Lock's latest poetry collection, Raptures and Captures, is published by Culture Matters, and a fuller version of this interview is online at culturematters.org.uk

OWNED BY OUR READERS

We're a reader-owned co-operative, which means you can become part of the paper too by buying shares in the People’s Press Printing Society.

 

 

Become a supporter

Fighting fund

You've Raised:£ 13,288
We need:£ 4,712
3 Days remaining
Donate today