Recently I was interviewed by Tehelka. Here are three of those questions and my answers.

Q) After September 11 attack, often heard that people from Middle East and Asia are under suspicion in US and Europe? Do you feel so?
A) Yes. I do feel so when I go to the airport. Last month my husband, the director of a research center in Washington, D.C. was humiliated on the airplane and his safety was put in danger by the flight attendant. He could easily have been shot by US air marshals. But truth be said the United States is where we can voice our concern.

Q) How you evaluate the governments in Iran and US.
A) There is no comparison between the Iranian regime and the U.S. government. The Iranian regime commits crimes against its own people and supports terrorism around the world. The United States has a democratic government and if people are dissatisfied with one political group they have the chance to elect a different one four years later. When the U.S. committed war crimes in Abu Gharib prison in Iraq we did hear and read about it and people get convicted. The same doesn’t apply to the ruling regime of Iran.

Q) Lot of Iranian writers are now in exile? What is their contribution generally? Exile literature has any major role in total.
A) Exiled writers are contributing a lot, not only to the Persian literature but to the world literature as well. Exiled and immigrant writers and poets have, throughout history, had an important role to play in discovering new frontiers in articulating experience and finding new means of expressions. Think of Russian exiles like Marian Tsvetaeva or Josef Brodsky. Think of German exiles like Paul Celan. The same applies to Persian literature. Not many people might know the bright exiled Iranian writers now. But in time they will.