American University of Cairo Press

Born in Minnesota to Iranian-French parents, Cyrus Kadivar grew up during the Shah’s reign in the Persian city of Shiraz. At sixteen he and his family were uprooted by the 1979 revolution. He has since worked as a banker, freelance journalist, and political risk consultant and lives in London.

The AUC Press just published his book Farewell Shiraz: An Iranian Memoir of Revolution and Exile (AUC Press, 2017). In this contributing essay below, Kadivar reminisces about his happy years in Iran as a boy and reflects upon the fall of the Shah and the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution, while stressing that it is his duty to tell his story and that of his country, through memories and interviews. 

Since the publication of Farewell Shiraz I have often been asked why I wrote this memoir. It seems like a simple question and yet I’ve struggled to find a simple answer. I suppose my first response would be that I wrote this book in order to free myself from the memories that have haunted me for close to four decades since I had to leave my beloved homeland. Another response I may give is that every generation has a responsibility to the following one: to pass on an authentic account of what they witnessed, experienced, and felt, particularly during times of great national upheaval. On an emotional level it is about reconnecting with my former self, making sense of my roots and identity, remembering where I come from.

I have many wonderful memories of Shiraz. As a boy, I cherished hearing my grandparents, parents and older family members telling me anecdotes and tales of the past. Who would have thought that after the unexpected events that changed our lives so dramatically, I would become the sole repository of those stories, the only person to try to pass them on to a younger generation of Iranians, like my cousin born in 1979 who frequently asks me what it was like living under the Shah. Once at a party she introduced me to her friends in London as a person who had lived a fairy-tale existence before his family had to leave their big house and everything behind. Non-Iranians curious about my origins inevitably seek to delve into my former experiences with questions that require a long answer. How does one summarize an entire life and the history of a country in a few words? The answer is that you can’t, except to write, write, and write. Thus my book—a memoir and like all memoirs a deeply personal undertaking >>>