To Evoke the Atmosphere for “Angels Never Die,” I Watched War Documentaries

According to the reporter of Iran Book News Agency (IBNA) in Qom, Fatemeh Javadi, during the eighth non-fiction afternoon session hosted by Somayeh Soltanpour, discussed interviewing and gathering information at the critique and review session for the books “Angels Never Die,” detailing the life of veteran Fereshteh Chatranbari, and “Heaven’s Seventh Sky,” detailing the life of martyr Ali Akbar Nazarisabet. She stated, “The two works I wrote were different. For ‘Heaven’s Seventh Sky,’ I had a person who had been martyred and was part of the intelligence operations section, so information about him was very scarce. In ‘Angels Never Die,’ I had a living subject.”

She continued, “For Martyr Nazarisabet, the martyr’s friends and those who knew him were either inaccessible – meaning they were individuals who could not be spoken with, or whose names should not be mentioned, or who held high ranks making interviews impossible – or ultimately, friends who had also been martyred.”

Javadi clarified, “The information available consisted of data and memories that had been previously collected and provided to me. There were a few individuals with whom it was possible to speak, so I approached them and conducted interviews.”

The author added, “Regarding Ms. Chatranbari, the difficulty was that she was from Khorramabad, Lorestan, and some memories she could not recount, or if she did, she insisted that certain parts, for example, not be included in the book. This was part of the challenges of working with a living subject, as the living subject herself determines which parts should be included and which should not.”

She further stated, “For this reason, I decided to build a friendly relationship and gain the subject’s trust when speaking with a living subject. We always assure the subject that nothing discussed will be written without their permission. This trust was established between me and Ms. Chatranbari, which made the work easier.”

The author of “Angels Never Die” recalled, “One of the challenges I faced with ‘Angels Never Die’ was that I had not seen the environment of Khorramabad and Lorestan, and I hadn’t had the opportunity to visit during the interview period. Therefore, I found a television documentarian who had made a documentary about the bombings during the war. They sent me their films, and through this, I became somewhat familiar with the bombing atmosphere and the environment that prevailed in Lorestan during the war. In this regard, the world-building I did in the book is indebted to this documentary.”

Javadi spoke about the writing style of the two books, saying, “In the writing style of ‘Heaven’s Seventh Sky,’ the narrator is not the martyr himself. We enter the story from the end and are constantly in flashback, with the martyr’s friends doing the narration.”

The author said, “In this book, Martyr Nazarisabet went on an operation and did not return, and everyone is worried about his whereabouts. In the meantime, memories are recalled by each narrator, and through this, they recount the events they shared with this martyr.”

She added, “However, in ‘Angels Never Die,’ we have a roughly linear form. Although we still enter the story from the end, it’s in a way that we are in a hospital, and Ms. Chatranbari, along with her daughter, enters the hospital for surgery. She becomes unconscious there, and when she regains consciousness, she returns to the scene of the bombing and her first experience at the hospital and the events that happened to her. From here, the story proceeds completely linearly to the end.”

I Forget Bitter Memories

In another part of the program, Fereshteh Chatranbari, in response to the question, “How difficult was it for you to recall those memories again?”, said, “Because the number of martyrs in our family is high, and those who are alive are military personnel, the topic of martyrdom is always present for me and thus not far-fetched. However, I forget bitter memories and try not to constantly recall them.”

She continued, “Recounting these memories was a difficult task for me, but Ms. Javadi tried to make it happen, and in this regard, I am satisfied with Ms. Javadi and wish her good health.”

Chatranbari reminded, “Although I am a writer myself and have authored several books, my pen never works for writing my own life story, and I cannot recall those memories and write them for myself again.”