Sūg-i Mādar Persiska (Farsi) 2024

“Mourning the Mother” is a collection of personal notes left behind by Shahrokh Meskoob, expressing his most genuine emotions, written without any intention of publication. Precisely for this reason, the book conveys some of the deepest and purest feelings a human being can express, free from the considerations and restraints usually imposed by publishing conventions.

This book becomes a safe refuge for Shahrokh Meskoob—and for anyone who has entered the state of mourning evoked by Mourning the Mother—a place to pause, rest for a moment, and lay down, if only briefly, the heavy burden of loss between its lines, in the hope of returning to reality slightly lighter than before. Meskoob writes these pages without disguise or pretense; he puts on paper his most natural and unfiltered emotions, shaped only by his innate and finely honed literary sensibility. Beyond that refined talent and literary instinct, he adds no unnecessary ornamentation to his prose.

The loss of a mother is, for any human being, a profound and shattering experience that manifests in many forms. A child who owes their very existence to their mother, upon losing her, feels as though they have partially lost their own life. The presence of Meskoob’s mother was always deeply significant in his life, and it is only natural that Mourning the Mother is permeated by an intense and enduring sorrow. Having endured imprisonment and other hardships sustained by the memory of his mother, Meskoob now, in this book, turns back to her through grief itself, seeking strength in her memory to bear this devastating loss.