The power of Forbidden Notebook’s hidden diary entries

Yet while she faded from view in Italy, there was one place where her popularity soared. Following the election of Mohammad Khatami as President in 1997, Iran was going through something of a literary revolution with the government relaxing censorship, resulting in many books that had not been allowed before being published or republished. Writer and historian Arash Azizi was a teenager in Iran in the early 2000s. “If you went into a coffee shop in Iran in those days everyone was talking about books. Literature was really seen as this powerful thing that can really change the world.”

Bahman Farzaneh, a highly regarded Iranian translator who has translated books from Spanish and Italian – including Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude – translated many of De Céspedes’ works. “When you have someone like Bahman Farzaneh translating a book, you buy it just for the translator. They have the role of a cultural mediator,” says Azizi. Several of De Céspedes’ books were published in Persian, but Azizi says the one that stood out was Forbidden Notebook. “It was one of the most identifiable books of that era. Without fail, friends from Iran that are my age, they all remember the book.”

He recalls it being especially popular among women – not only his peers, but women in their 30s, 40s and older. “I remember many of my female friends related to how the main character’s husband calls her ‘mamma’, which she found very frustrating. They too wanted to be known as more than mothers.”

The concept of a hidden diary, a space for recording thoughts that you weren’t allowed to share publicly, resonated for those living in a repressive society. “What I really loved personally was this confessional tone,” says Azizi. “This idea that you can reach a kind of emancipation by the power of words alone. For someone growing up in the repressive Islamic Republic, it was really powerful, because of all the things we couldn’t do. We did live this double life.”

Azizi is delighted more people will now discover the book. “I’m very excited that something that I grew up with can now be shared by my friends in the United States and around the world. The book is really a testament to that period of my youth, as well as a testament to the power of literature.”

So, why is De Céspedes being rediscovered now? “I think Ferrante has a lot to do with it,” says Goldstein, “Her popularity really led people to look for other Italian women writers.” Freudenheim says there’s been a resurgence of interest in women’s writing from the late 1940s to 60s in general – and De Céspedes is part of that. Pushkin is planning to publish two more books by De Céspedes over the next two years – Her Side of The Story (1949) and her debut novel Nessuno Torna Indietro (There’s No Turning Back).

“Literary rediscoveries are really exciting, full stop, but sometimes you can’t actually imagine very many people reading them, because they’re quite difficult or abstruse or dated in a way that doesn’t resonate,” says Freudenheim. “What’s so exciting to me about this novel is that it is just an incredibly readable book, which is heartbreaking at the same time and very moving. It’s a page-turner that has a lot to say. Everyone I know who has read it is struck by that.”

Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes (translated by Ann Goldstein) has just been reissued by Pushkin Press.

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