An Interview with Leissa Shahrak

Leissa Shahrak experienced the Iranian Revolution firsthand when she taught English in Iran. Her writing credits include stories published in Del Sol Review, the Bellevue Literary Review, and a British anthology, The Final Chapter: Writings on the End of Life.

A life-long traveler and enthusiast of international literature, she normally resides in Asheville, North Carolina, with a chess aficionado, a spoiled Shih-Tzu named Ming, and the occasional black bear. Now, because of Hurricane Helene, she’s vacated her home and is in exile in Virginia, waiting for potable water to return to Asheville and remembering her first evacuation from Iran in 1979.

Tell us the story of your book’s title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?

The working title of my novel was originally The Jihad of Angela Weston. It had stayed that way forever—at least, it seemed that I had worked an eternity on this book. As time went on, I felt that a title with the word “jihad” in it was no longer what I wanted. I didn’t have the least idea for a new title. Then, one occurred to me. Like most sudden revelations, it was so obvious that I felt like a fool for not discovering it before. Half the World comes from the Persian expression Esfahan nesf-e jahan. Esfahan is half the world. I had tried to personify Iran in general and Esfahan in particular in the book. And, for Americans, Esfahan is half a world away.

Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?

I’ve always wanted to write. My cousin and I co-authored, co-illustrated, and performed our first work, The Black Scarf, in front of our relatives. It told the story of a girl who always wore a black scarf, even on her wedding day. Finally, her husband removes the scarf—and his wife’s head fell off! Well, our story certainly lacked inevitability, but perhaps we understood a little about suspense. I hope you’ll find that Half the World is a great improvement.

What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?

Many of the jobs I’ve had in a long and anything-but-storied working life are those you might expect a writer would have: technical writing, library work, teaching all aspects of English or French to non-native speakers, international corporate training, corporate communication planning, curriculum writing.

Of course, I’ve had a few jobs that veered off in other directions: change management for employees, data and process analysis, and strategic planning

And, few people know about the kookier jobs I’ve had: Fuller Brush lady (I lasted a month.), pianist for ballet camp at the university.

Or the volunteer work I’ve done: cooking for the homeless, manning the information desk and giving lectures as part of the Speakers Bureau at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, serving on the board of a non-profit that raised money for micro-loans for women to start their own businesses in developing nations

I can only hope that no one knows about how I got a job writing course material for Saudi military personnel. I was pregnant with a husband in school, and I had received a rejection letter for a position for which I was well qualified. Desperate and green with morning sickness, I walked into the company’s offices, told them I had an interview scheduled for 10:30, They seemed to believe me, and they did interview me. I got the job.

What was the most rewarding/meaningful part of publishing your book?

Actually, it thrilled me to put out a novel that my friends would read. I know people where I live through book clubs, writing groups, film groups, wine-tasting groups, and our neighborhood. But through contacting people I knew elsewhere, I was also able to reestablish old friendships through my writing.

If your book had a soundtrack, what are some songs that would be on it?

Of course, the soundtrack would be made up of classical Iranian music, which occurs in a couple of places in Half the World. The score could include solos on the classical Persian instruments that I’ve mentioned in my novel: the dombak, santur, and tar. I suppose a little of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade might work. However, I would forego tunes from Kismet, a light-hearted Broadway musical that, nonetheless, hinted at Orientalism. Regrettably, Kismet would be appropriate for the wrong reasons. “A Stranger in Paradise” and “This is My Beloved” are beautiful songs drawn from Borodin’s music. And then, another little-known fact comes into play. I grew up on a farm near Kismet, Kansas—hardly a paradise. This tiny town of about 140 inhabitants was dubbed Kismet because its fate at one time was that the railroad ended there.

What is one thing you hope readers take away from reading your book? How do you envision your perfect reader?

I started writing Half the World with two objectives in mind. First, I wanted to show how living in a foreign country can wreak havoc on a marriage as well as upset the status quo in the host country and among its citizens. I also hoped that those who are unaware of post-WWII U.S.-Iranian relationships would learn what happened in the 1950s and the implications these events have on today’s attitudes, particularly if we continue to be dependent on fossil fuels. As I continued working on the novel, the political climate changed. Now, I would hope that readers would become aware of what it is like to live under autocratic rule. You have to be careful of what you say and do. You can’t trust others. Misinformation and gossip abound. No one knows the truth about anything. Conditions are ripe for manipulating the most vulnerable individuals like Hossein in my book and incarcerating the most astute. In the end, it seems, no one “wins” and everyone “loses” because, as Angela and Doug learn, nothing is black or white.

What new writing projects are you currently working on? Or, other projects that are not writing?

I’m still working on a literary mystery, Place of the Altars, that I started before I began work on Half the World. In Place of the Altars, when an American artist travels to Guatemala to investigate her twin brother’s death, she unravels clues to a tragedy whose dark cloud has hovered over her family since her birth. I’ve always been rather obsessed with how secrets from the past infiltrate the present with brutal consequences.

Speaking of the past, I’m trying to transcribe my grandfather’s WWI diary and letters and add my editorial comments. He was in the First Aero Squadron under General Pershing. Up until I started this project, what I knew of the First World War was imparted to me by the British and French poets who served. My grandfather’s comments are those of someone who only had an eighth-grade education. It’s a different kind of knowing for me.

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