Hollay Ghadery, on the perils of being half Iranian and her memoir, Fuse
Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation
Chai & Conversation
4.9 • 548 Ratings
🗓️ 7 February 2024
⏱️ 46 minutes
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Summary
Hollay Ghadery is is an Iranian-Canadian writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions (2021) and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box, came out Radiant Press in 2023 and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, is scheduled for release with Gordon Hill Press in fall 2024. Hollay is also a book publicist and the Poet Laureate of Scugog Township.
I read Hollay’s memoir Fuse back when it came out in 2021, and I couldn’t believe how applicable the things she wrote about were for my audience- for biracial or bicultural Iranians raised in the west grappling with issues of identity, of all the difficulties and joys of being raised with all these identities, of the dark sides of it, and the beautiful sides as well. I’m so excited for y’all to hear our conversation, and of course for you to experience this book, as I hope you all do.
Related Links:
- Hollay’s memoir Fuse
- Hollay on instagram
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation. |
| 0:02.8 | Growing up Nimjuni interview with Chaiang Conversation. |
| 0:39.0 | I'm so excited to share with you today my interview with Iranian-Canadian author, |
| 0:43.9 | Hale Qaderi. |
| 0:45.9 | I read Hale's memoir fused back when it came out in 2021, and I couldn't believe how applicable |
| 0:51.8 | the things she wrote about were for my audience. |
| 0:54.0 | For biracial or bicultural Iranians, raised in the West, wrapped in the world, couldn't believe how applicable the things she wrote about were for my audience. |
| 0:59.9 | For biracial or bicultural Iranians raised in the West, grappling with issues of identity, |
| 1:05.5 | of all the difficulties and joys of being raised with all these identities, of the dark sides of it, and all the beautiful sides as well. I'm so excited for y'all to hear our conversation, |
| 1:10.5 | and of course for you to |
| 1:11.5 | experience this book as I hope you all do. And without any further ado, here's my conversation with |
| 1:17.5 | Haile. Haile, Addi, thank you for talking with me today. |
| 1:22.7 | Thank you for having me. This has been a long, long time coming. I actually read your book back in during the |
| 1:28.5 | pandemic. I think it was at the very beginning of the pandemic, right? And when things were just |
| 1:33.6 | like crazy and all the kids are home and I'm sure you were going through it as well, but I've read |
| 1:39.0 | it in preparation for this interview and it really held up. And I was so happy to to read it again with everything |
| 1:45.6 | that's been going on in the past few years. It's been amazing. I really think you were, I thought this |
| 1:50.7 | then and I thought, I think this now you were ahead of your time with this book and it's just so, |
| 1:55.2 | it's so exciting to be able to talk to you about it and present this to our audience. It's just, |
| 2:02.5 | I mean, I want you to give an introduction to it and you just won an award for it. So yeah, tell me, tell me everything. |
| 2:07.8 | Yeah, of course. So thank you so much for saying that. I know when I published this book, |
| 2:12.0 | it was one of the things I mentioned in the book is that when I was looking for literature on the |
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