I’ve always loved old photographs. They provide a portal to the past, sparking my imagination and guiding me as I write about lost worlds and the people who lived in them. These pictures were some of the many that inspired Song of a Captive Bird, my novel about the poet Forugh Farrokhzad. In addition to pictures of Forugh and her family, I’ve included landmarks at which scenes in the book take place, like Café Naderi and The Grand Bazaar, as well as fictitious places such as The Palace and Leila’s garden estate, settings that live only in the book but that helped me imagine my way back through history and into my characters’ lives.

Song of a captive Bird

By writing in a woman's voice I wanted to say that a woman, too, is a human being. To say that we, too, have the right to breathe, to cry out, and to sing.

emember the flight-the bird is mortal.
-Forugh Farrokhzad

R