Amir Cheheltan: AN EXILE IN MY OWN COUNTRY

Renata Schmidtkunz in conversation with Amir Cheheltan

AN EXILE IN MY OWN COUNTRY

Amir Hassan Cheheltan is one of the most important contemporary Iranian writers. He lives and writes in Tehran. His novels have been banned from publication in Iran for over 20 years. They are published in German translation before any other languages. His latest book “The Rose of Nishapour”’was published by C.H. Beck in October 2024.

Renata Schmidtkunz talks to Amir Cheheltan at the Bruno Kreisky Forum about his new novel and his literary work, about the challenges of living and writing in Tehran, and the difficulties under which a vibrant creative cultural and intellectual scene in Iran is trying to survive and make their voices heard within the country and abroad. What are the perspectives of women and youth, of creative people and thinkers in the light of the situation in Iran and the war and increasing tensions in the Middle East? How is Europe perceived and what can be done better to support the potential and survival of artists and thinkers in Iran? 

Amir Hassan Cheheltan, writer, born in 1956 in Tehran and studied electrical engineering first in Iran, later in Great Britain. Cheheltan has been writing since the 1970s, has been active in the Iranian Writers‘ Association since 1977and is a jury member of international journalism „True Story Award“. After surviving two state-sponsored assassination attempts during the period known as “Iran’s Chain Murders,” the author of 13 novels and numerous essays and short stories in 8 volumes left Iran and lived with his family in Italy, Germany and the USA for several years. His work is translated into English, German, French, Italian, Hebrew and some other languages. Cheheltan was drawn back to Tehran because “…although he feels like an exile in his own country, he knows of no other place where he would rather write…”

Renata Schmidtkunz, Journalist, Film maker and Moderator, Director of the Radio Programme Series „Im Gespräch“, Radio Österreich 1