Sahar Delijani is the author of Children of the Jacaranda Tree, an internationally acclaimed novel, translated into thirty-two languages and published in more than seventy-five countries. Delijani’s writing has appeared in Literary Hub, McSweeney’s, The Kenyon Review, Kweli Jouranl and The Bellevue Review. She is the recipient of the 2023 de Groot Foundation Courage to Write Grant, the 2023 Society of Authors and Author’s Foundation Grant, and of fellowships at Hedgebrook, Art Omi: Writers and Monson Arts. Her work has furthermore been longlisted for the 2022 Granum Foundation Prize and nominated several times for the Pushcart Prize and the Best American Essay Series. Born in Iran in 1983, Delijani grew up in California and lived for many years in Turin, Italy. She currently lives in New York City.
Shot entirely in secret for fear of reprisal by the Iranian regime, Mohammad Rasoulof’s latest film The Seed of the Sacred Fig, is an urgent and emotional tribute to the Woman Life Freedom uprising and the ongoing fight for democracy in Iran. Notably, the film also marks the first time since the establishment of the Islamic Republic that Iranian actresses appear on the screen without wearing the mandatory hijab—a detail, which carries a tremendous symbolic significance both for the regime and the Iranian public.