Now, I'll be using my platform over the coming days and weeks to speak to people in the

diaspora, the Iranian diaspora, people who are from Iran, people who have lived the pain,

the suffering that people in Iran have gone through.

And obviously, there was this war now going on, and we're seeing obviously hideous scenes,

not just Iran, but we're seeing a broadening conflict.

But it's so crucial to have the lived experience of people from Iran at a time like this.

That should go without saying, but it doesn't always.

I'm really glad to be able to speak to Sahar Delajani, who is someone who's born in a prison,

in Evan Prison, in Tehran, where her parents were in prison for years, in fact.

She's an author, she wrote a very celebrated novel, Children of the Dacaranda Tree.

I just want to say, first of all, it's great to be able to speak to you.

You know, these are, this is, I'm aware, the emotional labour that this involves is something

that people like myself always have to

appreciate and listen to. So just thanks for joining me at such a difficult time.

Thank you so much for having me.

I just want to start. What are you thinking right now? What's going through your head?

You know, start. What's, what are you thinking right now? What's going through your head?

You know, these are very, very difficult, difficult period. And also, especially because we,

I myself, and I think probably a lot of Iranians that I know, we're still grieving. We're still grieving for the 20,000 lives lost in January. All these people who were, all these protesters who were killed by the Iranian

regime. And there were just still funerals going on in Iran, thousands and thousands of funerals.

And we hadn't even processed that, that grief, that tragedy.

We probably will never, I think there's going to be a before and after.

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