Mahsa Mohebali

Mahsa Mohebali (born 1972 in Tehran) is an Iranian writer, literary critic, and screenwriter, considered one of the most prominent voices of the third generation of Iranian fiction. She is a graduate of music from the Fine Arts College.

Mohebali gained acclaim with works such as the short story collection Lovemaking in the Footnotes and the novel Don’t Worry, both of which won the prestigious Houshang Golshiri Literary Award.

She is also an established screenwriter, having written several cinematic screenplays, including the films Ages of Love (Doran-e Ashighi) and 19, which have received awards both within and outside Iran.

Her works are characterized by a bold and explicit social critique, focusing intensely on the new generation, women’s issues, social crises, and the queer community within contemporary Iranian society.

The novel Don’t Worry (AKA In Case of Emergency), published in the USA, was named one of the “Best Books Published in America in 2022” by The New Yorker magazine. Her works have been translated into several international languages, including English, Italian, French, Polish, Turkish, and others.

Due to the critical and subversive nature of her content, Mahsa Mohebali has been under continuous pressure and surveillance from Iranian security forces throughout her writing and artistic career. Furthermore, all of Mohebali’s books are currently subject to a publication ban in Iran and are not permitted to be re-issued. She is currently an Artist at Risk, residing under the Artists at Risk (AR) residency program in Catalonia.

In Case of Emergency

Excerpt from the work:

Like always, she’s sitting at the out-of-tune grand piano, mashing down the pedal and making the windows of the Kolah Farangi Emirate tremble . . . Sara, when did you return? Since first grade you’ve always been there—on my bench, or I on yours; on the seesaw or on the swings; in the big black car that used to pick you up, or in this very garden, playing hide and seek, laughing, laughing, laughing . . . But so, when did you disappear? You went to Paris. Then suddenly the sorrow of exile seized you, and you appeared like a ghost among the herbs and tomatoes for sale at Tajrish Square. So that I said to myself: see how all that hash is finally catching up to you? See how you’ve become melancholic and hallucinate in broad daylight? Sara, in the middle of Tajrish Square? After all these years?

She can’t hear a thing over the off-key piano, and she doesn’t ease off the keys until I put my hand on her shoulder. Wearing her usual thin smile, she turns around and throws herself into my arms.

“Shadi!”

I want time to stop right here. I want to look at her thin, colorless lips and her downcast black eyes and her thin, crescent eyebrows forever. At the foolishness or love or affection that flutters in her eyes . . . I wrap my arms around her and dig my nose into her hair. The pine trees of our childhood spin around me. She takes my face between her hands and looks at me with wet, sad eyes.

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