The (CanL)It Crowd: Bänoo Zan
After my first book was published, I recieved some feedback saying the memoir could not be about biracial mental health because I was not, in fact, biracial. I was Iranian and white yes, but Iranians are white (“the original Ayran race” were the exact words used), therefore I am just white. I was prepared for a lot of critcism about the book but had not prepared for that. The experience was shocking, and also, delegitimizing. Grasping for any sort of hold on the many tumbling emotions I was feeling, I reached out to two Iranian writers I knew. Both offered support and solidarity. Both encouraged me to read The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian Americans and the Everyday Politics of Race by Neda Maghbouleh. One of those Iranian writers was poet, translator, and essayist Bänoo Zan. Bänoo was and is, to my mind, one of the most powerful and passionate members of the literary community in Canada. As the founder of Shab-e She’r (Poetry Night), Canada’s most diverse and brave poetry open mic (inception 2012), Bänoo has made fostering open and respectful conversations her mission. Any time I hear her speak or read her work, I walk away with much for my brain to chew on.
Today is no exception. I am honoured to welcome Bänoo to this series to share her thoughts about literary community, and raise an important perspective about how we think about this collective, and the words we use to describe it.
The (CanL)It Crowd with Bänoo Zan
Bänoo Zan. Photo credit: Rahma Shere.
Stateless Citizen
As a woman I have no country.
As a woman I want no country.
As a woman, my country is the whole world.
-Virginia Woolf
There came a storm
and God was not in the storm
There came silence
and God was in the sound of silence
-The Vision of Elijah in I. Kings (adapted)
How I wish for silence, for God, for no stories, and no borders. Strange wishes for a writer, indeed. But these are luxuries I cannot afford. If I wish the divinity in me to shine through, I have no other alternative but to resort to Jihad—Holy War—of the highest order: Jihad against Self.
The struggle against self is a struggle against humanity. There is no peace between the writer and the humanity.
For I am resigned to my fate, to being a political writer.
A newcomer in the Republic of Literature naively thinks that it is only the words that matter. The truth is that almost anything else matters more than words.
Words are excuses for treason against self and that non-existent god: Conscience. Writers may wish that words mean nothing if they refuse to mean what we want them to. But words are not bound by any such loyalties. They are stateless in dictatorships of taste.
As a woman born and raised in a deeply patriarchal culture and religion, I always felt an outsider. And, as I came from the provinces and did not belong to an elite family, I was doubly disadvantaged in the Iranian literary community, even in the provinces.
Iranian society suffers from all ills under the sun: sexism, racism, xenophobia, classism, homophobia, religious bigotry—you name it. Prejudices of all kinds run rampant. They go back to well before the current regime. The “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising is not a struggle against outsiders. It is Iran’s Jihad against her Self. It is a revolution.
A newcomer to the Republic of Literature may expect to find a community of subversives, iconoclasts, and libertines. They may soon have a rude awakening from that utopian dream by learning about written and unwritten rules of style, conduct, and content. This is a minefield to navigate even for writers born and raised in the culture, let alone newcomers, immigrants and refugees.
I love being among writers when we are a community. But community is not a class, nor is it limited to any one identity or any intersection of identities.
I have a problem with the word “citizenship.” It is uncomfortably associated with matters of state and arbitrary laws. For migrants and asylum seekers, this word is associated with applications, screenings, background checks, tests, rejections, and sometimes acceptance. If you are lucky, you will be allowed to take the citizenship oath; you will be in the privileged position to betray your country of birth, freedom.
There is a clash between the citizen and the creator. A citizen promises to belong; a creator promises not to. The pen liberates the writer from life and death. The pen liberates the writer from political and ideological definitions of freedom. The pen turns the writer into a stateless citizen of the world.
If literature is a stateless state, I am its citizen. But even then, I would not know if I truly belonged. Like the lovers in Persian ghazals, belonging simultaneously allures and repels me. My place on any map is on the border.
Storyteller Mark Jenkins at a recent 1001 Nights event deconstructed the art of storytelling as a journey whose destination is where there are no stories. And I felt the weight of all stories from Iran on my shoulders. What a blessed state to let go of them all. And although I have come a long way, I am far from that Kaaba. I cannot help asking
Who has shed so much blood
that he has turned into blood?
—Galaktion Tabidze, translated by Rebecca Ruth-Gould
Songs of Exile by Bänoo Zan, published by Guernica Editions.
More about Bänoo Zan:
Bänoo Zan is a poet, translator, essayist, and poetry curator, with more than 280 published pieces and three books including Songs of Exile and Letters to My Father. She is the founder of Shab-e She’r (Poetry Night), Canada’s most diverse and brave poetry open mic (inception 2012). It is a brave space that bridges the gap between communities of poets from different ethnicities, nationalities, religions (or lack thereof), ages, genders, sexual orientations, abilities, poetic styles, voices, and visions. Bänoo, along with Cy Strom, is the co-editor of the poetry anthology: Woman, Life, Freedom: Poems for the Iranian Revolution.
Donations: https://gofund.me/ab43b8e9
Questions? https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-kind-poems-we-looking-b%C3%A4noo-zan
Social media links
LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
Books: