Mammad Aidani Mammad Aidani i(A27299 works by) (a.k.a. Ma'mma'd Aidani)
Also writes as: M. Bian
Born: Established: 1955
c
Iran,
c
Middle East, Asia,
;
Gender: Male
Arrived in Australia: 1982
Heritage: Iranian
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Works By

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1 2 I Said This to the Bird Mammad Aidani , 2023 single work drama

'In I Said This To the Bird, four strangers accidentally meet and explore their dual senses of alienation as refugees in the midst of a city-wide pandemic lockdown.

'Four strangers, all Iranian men (for this production, a woman performs one of the man’s roles), are congregating in the hall of a migrant resource center somewhere in Melbourne. Their meeting coincides with the lifting of public health restrictions that have prohibited social gatherings and kept the city silent and in lockdown for many weeks. While all city residents have suffered during this unprecedented period of immobility, for recently arrived asylum seekers and refugees, the enforced isolation has been an especially gruelling and emotionally turbulent ordeal.

'In their coming together at the migrant resource centre, Arjang, Wahid, Sara, and Noshan take the audience through a rollercoaster of emotions, from anxiety to hostility, paranoia, alienation, and anger, cut across by brief moments of hope and exhilaration. I said this to the Bird confronts its audience with the destabilising experience of being displaced and othered, the frailty and thinness of friendship, and the challenges of enduring unrelenting hurt, loneliness and abandonment. Amid such psychologically unsettling circumstances, there is palpable relief in small moments that dissolve this anxious intensity—in recalled memories of home, in glimpses of laughter and love, in wrestling with writing to give voice to unspeakable experiences, and, for one of them, in conversations with a bird which provides a constant ear at a time when there is no one else to listen. 

'This plays is about gazing, observing, searching in empty spaces,  expressing, and reflecting on being of oneself and others within one’s own culture and the host culture in times of loneliness hoping for being heard and recognised.' (Production summary)

1 300 Words for Truth Mammad Aidani , 2020 single work essay
— Appears in: Overland , Summer no. 241 2020; (p. 3-10)
'We live in the age of new catastrophes. An exile's life is about fighting against oppression in the country of birth, gaining knowledge, demanding justice and freedom for all the world's people. Being an exile has taught me the true meaning of commitment, resoluteness and resistance of oppression and injustice.' (Introduction) 
 
1 In-Waiting Mammad Aidani , 2017 single work drama
1 How and On and On and On and On Mammad Aidani , 2017 single work drama
1 1 If, as ... Two Short Plays Mammad Aidani , 2010 single work drama humour
1 1 Stranger in the Corridor Two Short Plays Mammad Aidani , 2010 single work drama
1 y separately published work icon Are You Talking to Me? : In Conversation with ...Arif Satar, Sam Landels, Mammad Aidani : August 26 - September 26, 2004 Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts Arif Satar , Mammad Aidani , Sam Landels , Perth : Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts , 2004 Z1366803 2004 single work non-fiction
1 Excerpts from A Few Steps Not Here... Not There... Mammad Aidani , 2003 extract drama (A Few Steps Not Here Not There)
— Appears in: West of the West : Writing, Image and Sound from Melbourne's West 2003; (p. 95-96)
1 It Was...Then Mammad Aidani , 2003 single work drama
1 Waiting for Sunset Mammad Aidani , 2003 single work drama
1 y separately published work icon The Other Side. Issue 2 Mammad Aidani (editor), Sarah Berry (editor), Footscray : Footscray Community Arts Centre , 2002 Z1293744 2002 anthology poetry
1 4 In the Mirror Mammad Aidani , 2002 single work drama

'In the Mirror is about Shaun a white Australian who comes from a broken, poor working-class family, Virginia who has fled her war turn, repressive and despotic government that control her country to live in a free, democratic and peaceful society who are desperately looking for proper jobs. It is also about indifferent, detached and narcissists Paula and Paul and how they abuse their power toward Shuan and Virginia in the interviews they conduct with them, as well as their junior colleague Hendro, a second-generation migrant who dreams and aspires to become like them.'

Source: La Mama Theatre (2020 production).

1 Wommera [sic] i "In this refugee camp", Mammad Aidani , 2001 single work poetry
— Appears in: Overland , Spring no. 164 2001; (p. 35)
1 I Could Feel It in My Body Mammad Aidani , 2001 single work column
— Appears in: Overland , Spring no. 164 2001; (p. 34-35)
1 Threshold Mammad Aidani , 1998 single work drama
1 y separately published work icon An Idiot Amongst Us Mammad Aidani , Melbourne : Mammad Aidani , 1998 Z805292 1998 single work drama
1 1 A Few Steps Not Here Not There Mammad Aidani , 1997 single work drama
1 Untold Story Mammad Aidani , 1997 single work drama
1 y separately published work icon Voices from the Deep Close Distance Mammad Aidani (editor), Parkville : Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture , 1997 Z803481 1997 single work
1 7 y separately published work icon A Picture Out of Frame Mammad Aidani , Fitzroy North : Black Pepper , 1997 Z546326 1997 single work novel

In A Picture Out Of Frame our sympathy is wholly engaged. A boy grows up in poverty in Iran; he goes to the capital; he receives a letter from a friend; he is in exile. Nothing else happens. It will break your heart.

The prose is simple like that of Juan Ramón Jiminéz in Platero and I. (Yes there are donkeys here too.) But the village life so lovingly portrayed is on the brink of tragedy. That fate is precariously held in balance; its extent is only fully revealed in the letter received at the end. Aidani's deft ability to hold back in the face of overwhelming odds justifies his deliberate simplicity of style. The structure is invisibly subtle.

A meditation on the connections between reality, imagination, past and its present, this is a challenging book with revealing emotional richness. It tells the story of a young man who speaks in the third person in order to examine what he saw and suggests that this story could be anyone’s when invasion, war and terror dictates. The book invites the readers to be the real witness of its character’s narrative and observe how he shares his shattered world with us. The narrator invites us to think about the power of memory and its expression in our lives.

A Picture Out Of Frame is ultimately both hopeful and challenging, revealing how urgently the West and the East need to embark upon an understanding of each other.

[From the publisher's website]

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