Introduction: Reading the Invisible Ink

Summary

The outcome of the final clash between my heart and my mind

was a pleasant mistake

I grew up in this war

a war that motivated me toward a fresh start

under my hand there was a handful of prose poetry

above my head the cracks on my home's ceiling.

Bahram Nouraei, Khub (Good)

I was about thirteen years old when, one summer afternoon, my father casually handed me a cassette tape upon arrival home from work. He was a dedicated and unassuming librarian, and his peculiar mannerisms revealed his eternal love of books, while his personal library had become legendary among friends and family, owing not just to the sheer number of collected books in Persian, English and French, but more importantly to numerous rare and banned books, aside from a mostly secret collection of lithographs and handwritten books from the Qajar period. His present was an audiobook of the then famous ‘children's story’, The Little Black Fish, written in Persian by the Azerbaijani educator and author Samad Behrangi (1939–67). Originally published in 1968 by the Centre for Intellectual Cultivation of Children and Youth (CICCY; Kanun-e Parvarsh-e Fekri-ye Kudakan va Nojavanan), founded in 1965 by Empress Farah Pahlavi, the book, like those associated with its production, was to experience the most curious destiny. Having received the 1968 Children's Book Board Special Award, the book depicted the allegorical story of a young little black fish which, living in a trivial creek and dreaming of exploring the world, embarked on the perilous journey to join other fishes in the ocean, facing mortal dangers on the way. This particular rebellious fish, brimming with youthful zeal and idealism, succumbed neither to the reproaches of sedentary and lethargic elders nor to the threats of assorted waterways masters. The Persian language is not gendered, and so our protagonist did not have a specifically assigned gender, and expectedly, on the audiobook (nowadays available online) a female voice-actor's slightly high-pitched, androgynous voice embodied the little black fish's sonic presence. In my young mind then and to this day, the heroic fish has been simultaneously female and male. I travelled shoulder to shoulder with the fearless little fish in this timeless saga.