Interview with Mojgan Ghazirad
Amy and I decided to occasionally mix up our interview questions, and I’m excited to present the first variation with Mojgan Ghazirad! In addition to holding an MFA in creative writing and publishing three short story collections in Farsi, Mojgan is a medical doctor and an assistant professor of pediatrics at The George Washington University. Her first novel, The House on Sun Street, was recently published by Blair.
The House on Sun Street tells the story of Moji, a girl who loves sitting in her grandparents’ Tehranian garden listening to her grandfather retell the stories of One Thousand and One Nights. It’s set in 1979 during the Iranian revolution, when the last monarch of Iran leaves the country, and amid the cultural shift, Moji’s home and family are forever changed. This beautiful novel is told with such grace and is a testament to the enduring power of stories.
I’m so happy Mojgan agreed to this interview!
You’ve published three short story collections in Farsi. Did you ever doubt this novel would be published?
The process of getting published in the United States was a very difficult one for me. I knew no one in the publishing industry and coming from a country as far as Iran with a very different publishing culture certainly didn’t help. I searched for an agent for a year after I finalized my manuscript and after finding one, my agent had difficulty selling the book for three years. The Covid pandemic hit and I was truly busy in the hospital having little time to follow up with my agent and the progress of finding a publishing house. The publishing world slowed down as well with the pandemic and there were months that I had absolutely no news about my book. In 2021 I lost hope in publishing my book and I had a serious talk with my agent. She again encouraged me to be patient and advised that publishing the traditional way can be a very slow progress. I decided to do a major revision to my book and bring a scene from the adolescent years of the character to the beginning of the manuscript. I guess that scene caught the attention of a few editors and we received offers for the book. Ironically the current publisher, Blair, asked me to take the forward scene out and start where I had originally started the book. After the contract with Blair the rest of the process has gone very smoothly and I am happy with the end product, which has an eye-catching cover jacket and a beautiful interior design. I am thankful to my agent who taught me to be patient in the process of publication in the US.
You're a medical doctor, as well as a professor. How did you balance writing this novel amid such a demanding career?
It is definitely a challenge to write and work in a stressful and critical environment like the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). But over the years, I have become accustomed to a habit that helps me reflect my thoughts and express my feelings in writing. The emotional situation in the NICU can be overwhelming at times and hard to endure. But by building a routine to balance my writing life and my professional life as a neonatologist, I think I’ve been able to do both in the best way possible. I almost always work at nights in the NICU and in the mornings, when the unit is slow and babies are asleep, I try to get the words done for the day. There are also days that I don’t go to the NICU and I can dedicate those days fully to writing. Discipline and the love for words have made this possible for me.
Any reading recommendations?
I would like to recommend an essay I wrote a few years ago in Longreads that was later published in The Best American Travel Writing 2020 about a trip I had to my grandparents’ neighborhood after many years of living in the US. It conveys my emotions and thoughts as I visited the area that is now restricted to the public. The essay can be found here.
Also, for readers who have not read One Thousand and One Nights, I recommend The Arabian Nights – The Norton Critical Edition translated by Husain Haddawy. It is a good abridged version of the book. And finally, if anyone is interested to know more about the Islamic Revolution in Iran in the year 1979, Iran Between the Two Revolutions by Ervand Abrahamian is a great book to read.
Can you recommend a song that ties into your book in some way?
I listened to Iranian pop songs especially by Googoosh and Hayedeh as I wrote this novel. The lyrics are in Farsi and they may not make sense to the English-speaking people. But they catapulted me to the time these songs were popular in Iran and young and old listened to them every day. I also love Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov. It has the atmosphere of One Thousand and One Nights as you listen to it.
Thank you, Mojgan!