Fairy-stricken in Iran

• 21/09/2021
• 18:00-19:30
• Online talk

Shara Atashi, freelance writer and translator, will tell of the Persian poet Fayez-e Dashti, known as the “fairy-stricken vagabond.”

The legend of Fayez was put together by the people of Bushehr from the poet’s  double-couplets, in which he sang of the visitation of a fairy, his falling in love with her, their bond, his breaking of the bond and losing her–and with that, everything he had, including his mind. His verses are traditionally sung both as lullabies as well as wedding and funeral songs and have been handed down from generation to generation.

Shara Atashi will explain what it is to be ‘fairy-stricken’, tell us more about the Persian fairy (peri) and explore the themes of:  hallucination, insanity and superstition; nomadic life in Iran as threatened by industry and modern society; and the comparative observation and migration of folklore around the globe traced through etymology and other linguistic aspects