India, Feb. 7 -- 1Your novel spans four generations of an Iranian family from the 1979 revolution to present-day Germany. What drew you to tell this multigenerational story? Above all, I wanted to learn more about this topic myself. My parents were politically persecuted, first by the Shah and then by the Islamic regime, which is why they had to flee Iran a year before I was born. But that was all I knew. The details of how they became politicised, when they realised they had to flee and what their fears and hopes were, were not part of our family stories. So I used my work on the novel as an opportunity to interview my parents and ask all the questions you don't normally ask in a family. These interviews, along with my further research, formed the basis for the fictional family in the novel. 2The 1979 revolution is a pivotal moment in your novel. How do you see its echoes in contemporary Iranian society and in the recent protests? A 2024 survey revealed that 90 per cent of Iranians want democracy. A small but powerful elite section benefits from the current system, while the rest of the country suffers the consequences. When the major protests began in 2022, they were a movement of minorities. Starting in the Kurdish provinces and triggered by a long-standing feminist tradition of resistance. To me, this shows that people are trying to learn from past mistakes. We must not forget: after the 1979 revolution, it was also left-wing groups that accepted the oppression of women and minorities. 3Your novels often centre women's perspectives. What role do you see for women's voices in telling stories about political resistance and migration? I believe that we can only formulate political resistance if all voices are heard. I am not a big fan of upholding female voices simply because they are female voices. I want to uphold them because they have been underrepresented in past centuries. And I would do the same for all minorities, including those with a gender identity beyond the binary. For me, the most important thing is that we bring all voices together, combine them, and allow them to contrast or unite. 4The protests that began after Mahsa (Zhina) Amini's death in September 2022 were led by women and young people. What has it meant to you to witness this movement? It was a significant moment because the Woman, Life, Freedom movement represented all those hated by the Islamic Republic. It began in Kurdistan, a region where people were oppressed by both the Islamic Republic and the Shah. The movement also attracted queer people and other minorities and important alliances were formed between different minority groups. If I were to imagine a revolution, it would look like this movement, because there is no better foundation for democracy than a strong intersectional movement....