Everyone who influenced the characters I created in this novella is dead now. Generally, when I think about the people I once knew, I find that the number of dead is far greater than the living. I hope none of those I have described here will be offended in the afterlife, if such a thing exists.
And last but not least, there is no doubt that Women Without Men now belongs to Shirin Neshat as much as it does to me.
Shahrnush Parsipur
Richmond, California
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1 A holy city in northeastern Iran where the eighth imam in the Shiite tradition is buried.
2 The title “Prince” is often given informally to individuals who are either descendants or relatives of the former royal family, the Qajar dynasty.
3 Ali-ibn-Abitalib, Prophet Mohammed’s nephew and the first imam in the Twelver Shiite tradition, highly venerated in Iran.
4 A nickname for “Farrokhlaqa,” here a nom de plume, occurring in the last couplet of the poem, a common practice in the Iranian classical poetic tradition.
5 In some Islamic communities relationships with so-called concubines are religiously sanctioned and are considered common-law marriages.
Published in 2011 by the Feminist Press
at the City University of New York
The Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue, Suite 5406
New York, NY 10016
feministpress.org
Originally published in Persian as Zanan bedoone mardan
by Nashr-e Noqreh in 1989.
Zanan bedoone mardan copyright © 1989 by Shahrnush Parsipur Translation copyright © 2011 by Faridoun Farrokh Foreword copyright © 2011 by Shirin Neshat Author’s Note copyright © 2011 by Shahrnush Parsipur
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, used, or stored in any information retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the Feminist Press at the City University of New York, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This project is supported in part by an award from the
National Endowment for the Arts.
First printing December 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Parsipur, Shahrnush.
[Zanan bidun-i mardan. English]
Women without men : a novel / by Shahrnush Parsipur ;
translation, Faridoun Farrokh.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-558-61759-9
I. Farrokh, Faridoun. II. Title.
PK6561.P247Z3613 2011
891’.5533—dc23
2011039846
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