women
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A Fine D’Artagnan
Salty Eye, Sweet Play. Written in Four Vignettes, No. 4. “You always get to be D’Artagnan!” cried Morteza. “Well, I am the oldest,” said Mehdi. “No, you’re not. Niku’s the oldest.” “Niku’s a girl! A girl can’t be one of the three musketeers!” “D’Artagnan isn’t one of the three musketeers, Mehdi,” said Niku coolly, leaning…
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For Name’s Sake
Mahin Banu’s Baby. Written in four vignettes, No. 3. Every woman who married into the Moftakhar family was given a new name and a laqab, a descriptive title that replaced however unadorned a past a girl may have had in her father’s household, with the silver-threaded (albeit slightly moth-eaten) flourishes of her husband’s home. Over…
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Mahin in the Wind
The story of my grandmother, Mahin Banu (Persian for “lady like the moon”). Written in three vignettes, No. 1. Mahin Banu had a dark but lustrous imagination, which unlike her static coiffures, ran windswept and untamed. One winter afternoon, as the curly trees and clouds of Tehran blew across the city, Asqar Aqa came home…
al-majus 