Shusha Guppy

Shushā Guppy

Shushā Guppy
Background information
Birth name Shamsi Assār
Also known as Shusha
Born (1935-12-24)24 December 1935
Tehran, Iran
Died 21 March 2008(2008-03-21) (aged 72)
London, England
Genres Persian traditional music
Chanson
Singer-songwriter
Occupation(s) Singer
Writer
Years active 1971–2008

Shushā (Shamsi) Guppy (Persian: شوشا (شمسی) گوپی‎‎), née Shamsi Assār [1] (شمسی عصار)(D(24 December 1935 in Tehran, Iran – 21 March 2008 in London, United Kingdom), was a writer, editor and, under the name of "Shusha", a singer of Persian and Western folk songs. She had lived in London since the early 1960s.

Early life

Her father, Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammad-Kāzem Assār (آيت الله العظمي سيد محمد کاظم عصار), was a distinguished Shia theologian and Professor of Philosophy at University of Tehran. At age 17 Shusha was sent to Paris, where she studied Oriental languages and philosophy, and also trained as an opera singer. In Paris she encountered artists, writers and poets such as Louis Aragon, Jose Bergamin, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. She was encouraged by Jacques Prévert to record an album of Persian folk songs.

She married the writer and explorer Nicholas Guppy in 1961. They had two sons, Darius and Constantine Guppy, and were divorced in 1976. At the time of her marriage she moved to London, where she became fluent in English; she was already fluent in Persian and French. Guppy wrote articles for major publications in both Britain and America. She also began singing and acting[2] professionally.

Singer

Guppy's first British release, in 1971, was an album of traditional Persian music, complementing her first album released in France fourteen years earlier. By now, influenced by the Folk Revival, she was writing and singing some of her own songs, as well as covering the works of many contemporary singer-songwriters. She gave successful concerts in Britain, America and continental Europe, and appeared on television and radio programmes. She gave concerts in the Netherlands and Belgium in 1975 with Lori Lieberman and Dimitri van Toren.

She contributed music (in collaboration with G.T. Moore) and narrated the 1973 documentary film Bakhtiari Migration - The sheep must live. In 1976 this film was more than doubled in length and her narration was replaced by James Mason and it was released as People of the Wind.[3][4] The following year the film was nominated for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar and also for a Golden Globe.[5] The film follows the annual migration of the nomadic Bakhtiari tribes in southern Iran. The soundtrack was later released in the USA. How much she contributed to the film is in dispute. According to Shusha Guppy herself: "What has saddened me, and frankly made me angry, is not the money — as I said I wanted to make the film and financial rewards were not my aim — but the fact that all the credits were taken from me on People of the Wind of which the idea, the production, and the text were mine."[6]

Discography

All are vinyl LPs except where noted. The years given are for the first release.

Writer and editor

Guppy promoted Persian culture and history, and was a commentator on relations between the West and the Islamic world. Guppy's first book, The Blindfold Horse: Memoirs of a Persian Childhood, was published in 1988. It was highly praised, winning the Yorkshire Post Prize from the Royal Society of Literature, the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize, and the Grand Prix Littéraire de Elle. The book describes a Persia before the excesses of Shah Reza Pahlavi led to his overthrow, describing a country with an Islamic way of life without dogmatism or fanaticism.

Her last book, The Secret of Laughter (2005), is a collection of Persian fairy tales from Iran’s oral tradition. Many had never previously been published in written form.

For twenty years, until 2005, she was the London editor of the American literary journal The Paris Review.

Bibliography

Notes

  1. ↑ The name Shamsi (شمسی) is an attributive adjective, referring to the word Shams, the Sun, and may be interpreted as of or pertaining to the Sun. According to Dehkhoda, Assār (عصار) has two distinct meanings. The first refers to the professions dealing with pressing grapes or pressing oil-seeds; thus Assār is one who holds one of these professions. In this sense, the word Assār has its root in the word Osāreh, which means Juice or Ooze. The second interpretation is King and Refuge, in the meaning of one who provides shelter. In this second sense, Assār has also been used as a collective name. (Based on information gleaned from Loghat'nāmeh-ye Dehkhoda.)
  2. ↑ She used the stage name Shusha Assar from about 1962 to the early Seventies. Her credits include: Night Conspirators (1962), Lorna Doone (1963), Lysistrata (BBC 1964), Unscheduled stop (1968).
  3. ↑ "People of the Wind" crew and cast Retrieved 25 December 2010
  4. ↑ "People of the Wind" Retrieved 25 December 2010
  5. ↑ "People of the Wind" awards Retrieved 25 December 2010
  6. ↑ Milestone Films promotion of "People of the Wind" Retrieved 25 December 2010]
  7. ↑ Also released on the Spanish label Vergara in 1963 as Canciones de amor persas, both these EPs were issued under the name Chucha Assar and this recording has been made available for download on iTunes under the (mistyped) name Chuchar Assar.

See also

References

Obituaries

  1. ↑ Martin, Douglas (December 1, 2013). "Natalya Gorbanevskaya, Soviet Dissident and Poet, Dies at 77". NY Times. Retrieved 24 August 2014.
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