by AnnSheybani | Mar 2, 2011 | Cultural Issues, Uncategorized
“He’s hypnotized you,” Mom said when I told her I was going to marry the Iranian and move to his country. “Do you have any idea how they treat women in Islamic countries?” I regarded her through narrowed eyes because my mother, who considered Raman noodles foreign,...
by AnnSheybani | Aug 8, 2010 | Bigotry, Chiang Kai Shek, Codependency, Cultural Issues, Gloria Steinim, Hostage crisis, Iran, Rescue, Suzy Wong
I’m disappearing to a writer’s conference for ten days. So here, because time is not my friend, is a segment from my book The Lost Girls of Shiraz. A draft, but a taste nonetheless. He’s so sure of himself, this man beside me. So comfortable in his own...
by AnnSheybani | May 31, 2010 | cancer, Cultural Issues, death, dying, Faith, fatalism, Final Gifts, hospice nurse, Kubler-Ross
So much time has passed, but the two and a half years of illness are still fresh in my mind. I can still hear his voice calling me from the hospital after exploratory surgery. From the tone, I know something is terribly wrong even before he tells me. He’s supposed...
by AnnSheybani | Apr 27, 2010 | Cultural Issues, developing world, girls' education, Half the Sky, Hymen, imperialism, Iran, mass rape, maternal mortality, microfinance, mysogany, Nicholas Kristof, prostitution, sex trafficking, Sheryl WuDunn, slavery, virginity, wedding night
I’m back at the small confectionary shop in Iran where Hannah, my husband’s niece, and I order frozen noodles. “One of the girls in my study group had a really hard time breaking her hymen on her wedding night, ” Hannah says, staring out the picture window at women...
by AnnSheybani | Mar 3, 2010 | Betrayal, Boundaries, Codependency, Cultural Issues, Oriah Mountain Dreamer, Polygamy, Self-Esteem, The Invitation
A long time ago, before I had children, my husband took a second wife. We were living in Washington, D.C., not the Islamic Republic of Iran, and I had nothing of real value to lose if I packed up and left. The other woman— an old girlfriend who, last I’d heard, had...
by AnnSheybani | Feb 21, 2010 | Authenticity, Codependency, Cultural Issues, Match.com, narcissism, personality disorder, Self-Esteem, Sociopathology, Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, virgin
“You know,” my Iranian boyfriend said one evening as we lay squished together on his twin bed. “I don’t think I’m the kind of man who could ever marry an American. I just wasn’t raised that way. I always believed that one day I would return home and marry one of my...
