Maqāmāt-i Matn: Persian 2024

Textual Mosaic is a groundbreaking novel that delves into a subject never before explored in Persian literature: the massacre of Indigenous children in Canada’s Catholic residential schools. In this powerful and courageous work, author Sotoudeh weaves together the traumatic history of Indigenous children in Canada with the lives of Iranian refugees and immigrants. By drawing a historical dialogue between these two communities, she crafts a narrative that is as formally innovative as it is emotionally resonant. Textual Mosaic is a literary and ethical reckoning with the legacies of displacement, colonial violence, and cultural survival. Marzieh Sotoudeh, a fiction writer and translator, was born in Tehran and currently resides in Toronto, Canada. Over the years, two collections of her stories, comprising twenty-eight tales, were not permitted for publication in Iran. However, her stories gained recognition in literary publications and websites, capturing the attention of fellow writers and critics, earning awards in the process. For the past eight years, Marzieh Sotoudeh has been dedicatedly contributing to the literary club of the Ontario Women’s Organization, serving specifically in her role as a creative writing teacher, as a volunteer. In her stories, Sotoudeh explores themes such as immigration challenges, the clash between tradition and modernity, internal conflicts, and homelessness. The characters in her narratives, grappling with failure and disappointment, strive to attain harmony with life and reconciliation with themselves. Through the journey of spiritual revelation, they inspire readers to engage and reflect on their own lives.