Zoya Pirzad receives France’s Chevalier of Legion of Honor

After Hossein Alizadeh, a leading classical composer and musician, turned down the prestigious Chevalier of Legion of Honor award in late 2014, many thought the French government would slow down if not stop awarding distinguished figures in Iranian society. But the trend of presenting awards to Iranian artists and scholars carries on. What comes next is a partial translation of a report Sharq daily ran on December 30 on the latest Iranian to win the award:

Zoya Pirzad, an Iranian author who is known for her novels “Things We Left Unsaid” and “We Will Get Used to It” which have been reprinted several times already, has received France’s Chevalier of Legion of Honor.

“The Acrid Taste of Persimmon”, “One Day till Easter” and “Like Every Evening” are among Pirzad’s novels which have been bundled together under the title of “Three Books”.

The Iranian novelist has also translated “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll and a collection of haikus.

Her books are among Persian literary works which have been rendered into different languages, including French.

Over the past years a number of Iranian figures including Mahmoud Hessaby [an eminent scientist, researcher and professor], Abbas Kiarostami [a film director and screenwriter], Pari Saberi [a drama and theater director], Jalal Sattari [an Iranologist, mythologist and writer], Mohammad Ali Sepanlou [a poet and literary critic], Leila Hatami [an actress], Asghar Farhadi [a film director and screenwriter], Shahram Nazeri [a vocalist and composer] and Reza Seyyed Hosseini [a writer and translator] have been awarded the French prize.

Mohammad-Reza Shajarian [an internationally-acclaimed vocalist known as Iran’s greatest living master of traditional Persian music], Dariush Mehrjui [a film director and screenwriter], Kambiz Derambakhsh [a cartoonist and graphic designer] and Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, [a veteran writer] have been the recipients of the award over the last few months.

Also, Lili Golestan, a translator and artist, has been honored with France’s high cultural distinction dubbed the Order of Academic Palms.