Shushā Guppy (; née Shamsi Assār (; 24 December 1935 – 21 March 2008) was a writer, editor and a singer of Persian and Western

folk song Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

s. She lived in London from the early 1960s, until her death in 2008.

Early life

Her father, Sayyed Mohammad-Kāzem Assār, was a Shia theologian and Professor of Philosophy at

University of Tehran The University of Tehran (UT) or Tehran University (, ) is a public collegiate university in Iran, and the oldest and most prominent Iranian university located in Tehran. Based on its historical, socio-cultural, and political pedigree, as well as ...

. At age 16 in 1951, Shusha was sent to Paris, where she studied French Literature and philosophy at Sorbonne, and also trained as an opera singer. In Paris she encountered artists, writers and poets such as Louis Aragon, José Bergamín,

Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary criticism, literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th ...

and

Albert Camus Albert Camus ( ; ; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, journalist, world federalist, and political activist. He was the recipient of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the s ...

. She was encouraged by

Jacques Prévert Jacques Prévert (; 4 February 1900 – 11 April 1977) was a French poet and screenwriter. His poems became and remain popular in the French-speaking world, particularly in schools. His best-regarded films formed part of the Poetic realism, poetic ...

to record an album of Persian folk songs. She married British writer, explorer, and art collector Nicholas Guppy in 1961. The couple had two sons, Darius and Constantine, but divorced in 1976. At the time of her marriage, she moved to London, where she became fluent in English; she was already fluent in Persian and French. Guppy wrote articles for major publications in both Britain and the United States. She also began singing and acting professionally.

Singer

Guppy's first British release, in 1971, was an album of traditional Persian music, complementing her first album released in France fourteen years earlier. By now, influenced by the Folk Revival, she was writing and singing some of her own songs, as well as covering the works of many contemporary singer-songwriters. She gave successful concerts in Britain, America and continental Europe, and appeared on television and radio programmes. She gave concerts in the Netherlands and Belgium in 1975 with Lori Lieberman and Dimitri van Toren. She contributed music (in collaboration with G.T. Moore) and narrated the 1973 documentary film ''Bakhtiari Migration – The sheep must live'', which, in 1976, was more than doubled in length and her narration replaced by one by actor James Mason. It was released as '' People of the Wind''. The following year the film was nominated for the Best Documentary Feature

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and also for a Golden Globe. The film follows the annual migration of the nomadic Bakhtiari tribes in southern Iran. The soundtrack was later released in the USA. How much she contributed to the film is in dispute. According to Shusha Guppy herself: "What has saddened me, and frankly made me angry, is not the money — as I said I wanted to make the film and financial rewards were not my aim — but the fact that all the credits were taken from me on ''People of the Wind'' of which the idea, the production, and the text were mine."

Discography

All are vinyl LPs except where noted. The years given are for the first release. *''Chansons d'Amour Persanes'' (7-inch EP 1957) *''Persian Love Songs and Mystic Chants'' (1971) *''Song of Long-time Lovers'' (1972) *''Shusha'' (1974) *''This is the Day'' (1974) *''Before the Deluge'' (1975) *''People of the Wind'' (1977) *''From East to West'' (1978) *''Here I Love You'' (1980) *''La Fortune'' (1980 – cassette) *''Lovely in the Dances: Songs of Sydney Carter'' (1981) *''Durable Fire'' (1983) *''Strange Affair'' (1986) *''Refugee'' (1995 – CD on Sharrow Records) *''Shusha / This is the Day'' (2001 – reissue on CD)

Writer and editor

Guppy promoted Persian culture and history, and was a political commentator on relations between the West and the Islamic world. Guppy's first book, ''The Blindfold Horse: Memoirs of a Persian Childhood'', was published in 1988. It was highly praised, winning the '' Yorkshire Post'' Prize from the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 800 Fellows, elect ...

, the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize, and the '' Grand prix des lectrices de Elle''. The book describes a Persia before the excesses of Shah Reza Pahlavi led to his overthrow, describing a country with an Islamic way of life without dogmatism or fanaticism. Her last book, ''The Secret of Laughter'' (2005), is a collection of Persian fairy tales from Iran's oral tradition. Many had never previously been published in written form. For twenty years, until 2005, she was the London editor of the American literary journal ''

The Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published new works by Jack Kerouac, ...

''.

Bibliography

*''The Blindfold Horse: Memories of a Persian Childhood'', William Heinemann Ltd, 1988, ; I B Tauris & Co Ltd, 2004, . *''Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan: Vol 2'', by Isabella L. Bird with introduction by Shusha Guppy, Virago Press, 1989, . *''A Girl in Paris'', William Heinemann Ltd, 1991, ; I B Tauris & Co Ltd, 2007, . *''Looking Back: A Panoramic View of a Literary Age by the Grandes Dames of European Letters'', with introduction by Anita Brookner, Simon & Schuster Ltd, 1992, . *''On the Death of a Parent'', Shusha Guppy et al., ed. Jane McLoughlin, Virago Press, 1994, . *''One Thousand and One Persian-English Proverbs'', eds. Simin Habibian, Shusha Guppy et al. Ibex Publishing, 1995, . *''Three Journeys in the Levant: Jordan, Syria, Lebanon'', Starhaven, 2001, . *''The Secret of Laughter: Magical Tales from Classical Persia'', I B Tauris & Co Ltd, 2005, .

References

''Shusha'', Discography

External links

* Shusha Guppyat

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

* Shusha Guppy speaks in the documentary film on Omar Khayyām, ''Intoxicating Rhymes and Sobering Wine'', (1 min). * ''Shusha Guppy on her return to Iran'', '' Woman's Hour'',

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

, 16 March 2006

(8 min 35 sec). * Shusha Guppy, ''School of Illumination'', Sunday Feature, 45 minutes,

BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts ...

, Sunday, 19 March 2006

Note: At present BBC offers no audio recording or a transcript of this programme. The website presents however an extensive bibliography. * Shusha Guppy
"The Book of Kings"
in '' Parnassus (1973 magazine), Parnassus'', Vol. 30. * Shusha Guppy's song, ''Natalya'', referred to in the obituary of Natalya Gorbanevskaya. {{DEFAULTSORT:Guppy, Shusha 1935 births 2008 deaths 20th-century British memoirists 20th-century English singers 20th-century English women singers 20th-century Iranian women singers 20th-century Iranian women writers Burials at Behesht-e Zahra English documentary filmmakers Persian-language singers of Iran Persian-language singers from the United Kingdom English folk singers English singer-songwriters English women singer-songwriters English women writers Iranian emigrants to the United Kingdom Iranian folk singers Iranian memoirists Singers from Tehran University of Paris alumni Women documentary filmmakers Women memoirists