Mahvash
Shahegh is an author, educator, researcher, and translator. She has
written a book that will be published by Wisdom Tales under the title The Green Musician (coming in August, 2015). It is a children’s book that is being illustrated by Claire Ewart. The Green Musician was
translated and adapted from a major Persian epic poem that is over a
thousand years old, and Mahvash focused the story in the book on a
small segment of the epic poem. The text of Mahvash’s book is not in
the form of poetry, but she has managed to maintain the feel of a
magical time and place long ago with vivid images of grand royal
events, jealous opponents, magnificent gardens, enchanting music and
the power of persistence!
Mahvash Shahegh has shared with us how she came to write the book:
About five years ago (i.e. around 2009), I started a Shahnameh (“The Book of Kings” of Persia) reading group.
 Mahvash Shahegh with
grandson James
While reading it, I stumbled on the story of Barbad and Sarkash. They
are two famous and talented musicians of the Sasanian Dynasty (224 CE
to 651 CE) who are mentioned in the epic, and this attracted my
attention. The scenery, the characters, and the story were so vivid and
colorful that it made me think of my two grandchildren and how much
they would enjoy listening to and reading this story. Thinking of them
was great motivation for me to retell and translate the story into
English, for not only my own two grandchildren, but for children all
over the world. There are some human aspects in literature that
surpass the boundaries of man-made borders. They belong to the whole of
humanity. I hope The Green Musician is one of those stories and that children from different cultures will enjoy reading it just as much.
Mahvash Shahegh’s own story began in her native Iran and, like the story in The Green Musician, involves a transition to another culture. Here is her personal story, told in her own words:
I
was born, raised, and educated in Tehran, Iran. I earned a PhD degree
in Persian language and literature before my two children and I moved
to the United States.
My
dissertation was “The Trace of Fairies in Persian Stories and
Literature.” You can see that from the beginning I was interested in
stories in general and fairy tales in particular.
After moving to America, I signed up my son, my daughter, and myself,
for elementary school, middle school and college, respectively. My
major was English language and literature and we all began the hard
work. I remember I wrote an essay that was published in my college
journal under the title “How William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway
Saved Me from Being Homesick.” As you see, reading was part of my
regimen for survival.
When I started the graduate program of Library and Information Science,
one of my courses in the library school was children’s and young adult
literature. I forgot to mention that in my home away from home,
America, before reading Faulkner and Hemingway, I started my intense
reading with Judy Blume’s books for children and young adults. My
favorite of hers, which I enjoyed enormously and which I remember
vividly to this day, is Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
After finishing my education in America, I worked for a while as a
librarian and then as an instructor teaching my native language,
Persian. I taught for a few years at Johns Hopkins University before my
retirement. I published a two-volume book for college students on how
to learn Persian.
Dr. Mahvash Shahegh’s Persian language book, co-authored with two of her colleagues and put out by IBEX Publishers, is titled Learning Persian. |