THE PROPOSAL A senior reporter for Le Figaro, Iranian-born journalist Delphine Minoui paints a fictional portrait of a 16-year-old girl who embodies a whole generation in revolt against the condition of women in an intractable and immovable Islamic Republic. At birth, the little girl had been named Zhara by her father’s decision in homage to an icon of Islam, but her mother preferred to call her Badjens (“cheeky” in Persian).
The action takes place in Shiraz in October 2022 in the heart of spontaneous demonstrations during which young Iranian women dare to defy the mullahs by burning their maghnaé and revealing their hair in public. A struggle for collective emancipation that involves many individual sacrifices.
THE INTEREST Beyond the heroine’s moving journey, told in the form of a particularly powerful interior monologue, it is the recent history of a country that is described in great detail by the winner of the Albert-Londres prize, a specialist in the region for 25 years.
We meet three generations of women, and incidentally men, whose paths illustrate the evolution of a formally rigid society but where many elements are negotiated, “even religion”. The book is rightly among the 4 finalists for the FNAC 2024 Novel Prize, awarded on September 24.
THE EXTRACT “I am watching, overexcited, what I had only seen until now behind my screen: an improvised, rebellious and joyful demonstration, without a leader, demanding the end of the dictatorship of the ayatollahs who have ruined the country and wrecked our lives. Suddenly, bursts of gunfire. -Be careful, they are shooting with hunting rifles!”
Badjens
novel
Delphine Minoui, Seuil, 150 pages, 18 euros
