“The fresh breath of freedom gives me the strength to write.” Author Goli Taraghi first moved to Paris in 1979, after the fall of the Shah, but soon returned to Tehran. A single mother, she left again in early 1981 to spare her two young children the dread of the Iran-Iraq War. Back in Paris more permanently, she wrote the acclaimed short story “The Great Lady of My Soul” (“Borzog Banu-ye Ruh-e Man,” 1982), which blends a ground-level view of revolutionary chaos with otherworldly visions to startling effect. While she continues to return frequently to Iran, she observes, “As an immigrant living in Paris I have come to know a lot of exiled Iranians who cannot go back home. Their longing and hidden anxieties have become a theme of several of my stories.”
