Introduction to the book: “Mother’s Empty Place”
The book “My Mother’s Empty Place,” written by Hamed Farmand, was released by H&S Media as the first Persian book about the childhood memories of a prisoner. Prison literature, as a part of “Memoirs – Narratives of Citizens,” is highly important for understanding the effects of various political and social events on society. In the past decades, this literary genre has entered the publishing market with a collection of memoirs and narratives of prisoners, enriching literature and providing important and reliable documents for researchers and interested readers. However, the memoirs and narratives of the families of prisoners and what they have gone through have been less written about. On the other hand, there have been no memoirs of children in prison literature so far. The book “My Mother’s Empty Place” can be considered the first fictional book based on the experiences of children of prisoners in Iranian literature.
This book is the story of a child of a prisoner in the early years of the 1960s. The author has written his story based on personal experience and scientific research on the effects of parental imprisonment on children. The book, “Mom’s Empty Place,” is not only the story of a child, but it is also written in a childlike language.
The author of the book writes in the introduction about the language of the book, stating that his effort has been to look at things from a child’s perspective with minimal interference from the judgments of an adult. He goes on to confirm that this style of storytelling has led to a lack of accuracy in the information presented in the book. However, in the author’s opinion, this imperfect perspective is the main feature of the book. He has tried to help the reader understand the world of a child and in doing so, has brought to the forefront what it means for a child to have their mother arrested and imprisoned.
In psychological studies, the relationship between a prisoner and a child before the arrest, the circumstances of the arrest, the first meeting, the child’s relationship with the arrested person during their time in prison, the child’s normal life without the presence of the prisoner, the child’s personal and familial characteristics, and the freedom of the prisoner are all interconnected and have an impact on the type and severity of the effects of parental imprisonment on the child. “The Empty Place of Mom” is the experience of one of these children, but the author, considering the limitations of a literary work, has depicted each of these periods and situations in the form of one or more parts of the story.
“Mom’s Empty Place” has been published by H&S Media in 154 pages and its print and electronic versions are available through Amazon and Google. These publications suggest that Iranian readers donate a certain amount to a charity organization and, by providing a deposit receipt, access the electronic version of the book.
Book Name: Mother’s Empty Place
Author: Hamed Formand
Publisher: H and S Media
Print date: 1394
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Children of prisoners Hamed Farmand Introduction to the book Monthly Magazine Issue 57 Monthly Peace Line Magazine Mother's empty place ماهنامه خط صلح