Individual residencies / Olot
ATIEH ASADOLLAHI
From Monday, 13 September 2021 to Monday, 20 September 2021
Bio
Atieh Asadollahi is an Iranian writer and translator who is living in Belgium. She majored in Literature, but later moved to the field of Cultural Studies and Anthropology and studied for a second master's in KU Leuven.
She has published a couple of short stories and the translation of a novel in Persian. One of her stories, My Terror, has been anthologized in Hammond House collection of award-winning short stories of 2020. Her being active in the world of education and teaching for more than ten years has always acted as a great source of inspiration for her both academic and creative writing. She has taught both English and literature.
Project
I am from Iran, but I live in Europe. I lived long enough in the era before Corona, and I have also experienced what life is like with Corona. Wherever and whenever, I have always been a monitorial dweller. The White City, The Red City, the novella I am working on these days, comes from such a liminal position I observe from. It is my attempt to bring a state of knowing to my microcosm and hopefully to that of the readers' now that the macrocosm seems to get more and more insurmountable and chaotic every year with new and old shocks up his sleeve.
Faberllull, A Room of My Own
It took me almost two hours to get to Faberllull from the Barcelona Airport. But in fact, it was there on the way where Faberllull began for me: through the mountains, forests and tunnels. It told you from that very beginning that it was going to be a move from the daily distractions of bustling life in search for some uninterrupted contemplation.
For me and my life looking like itself, the key to room 208 was a key to a room of my own, not in feminist terms, but in something bigger. It was some preplanned, temporary, aided and decided upon freedom, that is the only possible form of freedom to me. Something to savor, and remember forever. Creativity could never relish an opportunity greater than that, I bet. An opportunity where the simulation of freedom was seated next to the amazing nature that had engulfed the experience. And ironies have alwaysbred more creativity. And some artists care about creation as much as life itself, even sometimes more.
Room 208 was also great in another paradoxical way: it was the solitude that could be left at will to enjoy the other face of the experience: the company as awesome as the nature around. This face of the experience came to me with the excitement one might feel before a blind date: who am I destined to be paired with? The dinner time or our walks sometimes happened to offer even more than the nature and solitude did. People mostly on the same wavelength, each with a different story to share.
On the way back to the life out of the green house, I felt something had received some maintenance, some protection. It was stronger, for sure. I am truly grateful for the opportunity which will help that something in me survive under unpreplanned and unaided conditions. :)