Shusha Guppy

Shushā Guppy
Shushā Guppy
Background information
Birth name	Shamsi Assār
Also known as	Shusha
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 (شمسی عصار)(D(24 December 1935, Tehran, Iran — 21 March 2008, 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 mid 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. She was sent to Paris when she was only seventeen to study Oriental languages and philosophy. She 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 albums of Persian folk songs, and subsequently chansons and old French songs.

After marrying the writer and explorer Nicholas Guppy in 1961 (they had two sons, Darius Guppy and Constantine Guppy, and were divorced in 1976) she moved to London, where she became as fluent in English as she already was in Persian and French. She wrote articles for major publications in both Britain and America. She also began singing professionally.

The singer

Her first British release, in 1971, was an album of traditional Persian music, previously released in France. 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/song-writers. She gave successful concerts in Britain, America and continental Europe, and appeared on television and radio programmes. She gave concerts in Holland and Belgium in 1975 with Lori Lieberman and Dimitri van Tooren.

She contributed music and voice-over to the documentary film People of the Wind (1976). The following year the film was nominated for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar and also for a Golden Globe. 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."

Discography

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

• Persian Love Songs and Mystic Chants (1971)
• Songs of Long-time Lovers (1972)
• Shusha (1974)
• This is the Day (1974)
• Before the Deluge (1975)
• From East to West (1978)
• Here I Love You (1980)
• Lovely in the Dances: Songs of Sydney Carter (1981)
• Durable Fire (1983)
• Strange Affair (unknown)
• La Fortune (unknown)
• Refugee (1995 - CD on Sharrow Records)
• Shusha / This is the Day (2001 - reissue on CD)

The writer and editor

Her first book, The Blindfold Horse: Memoirs of a Persian Childhood. was published in 1988. It was highly praised, winning the Yorkshire Post Prize, a prize from the Royal Society of Literature, the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize and the Grand Prix Littéraire de Elle. She describes how Persia was before the excesses of the last Shah led to his overthrow, with an Islamic way of life without dogmatism or fanaticism.

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

She promoted Persian culture and history, and was a commentator on relations between the West and the Islamic world. For twenty years until 2005, she was the London Editor of the American literary journal The Paris Review.

Bibliography

• The Blindfold Horse: Memories of a Persian Childhood, William Heinemann Ltd, 1988, ISBN 978-0434308507; I B Tauris & Co Ltd, 2004, ISBN 978-1850434016.
• Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan: Vol 2, with Isabella L. Bird, Virago Press Ltd, 1989, ISBN 978-1853810558.
• A Girl in Paris, William Heinemann Ltd, 1991, ISBN 978-0434308521; I B Tauris & Co Ltd, 2007, ISBN 978-1845113803.
• Looking Back: A Panoramic View of a Literary Age by the Grandes Dames of European Letters, with Anita Brookner, Simon & Schuster Ltd, 1992, ISBN 978-0945167303.
• Three Journeys in the Levant: Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Starhaven, 2001, ISBN 978-0936315171.
• The Secret of Laughter: Magical Tales from Classical Persia, I B Tauris & Co Ltd, 2005, ISBN 978-1850434276.

See also

• Mastan Ensemble
• Music of Iran
• List of Iranian musicians

References

• Biographical details
• Shusha, Discography
• Roger Scruton, Shusha Guppy, Obituary, Monday, March 24 2008, The Guardian

Obituaries

• Scruton, Roger (24 March 2008). "Shusha Guppy: Iranian singer, writer and composer who moved freely among intellectual circles". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 September 2010.
• Martin, Stoddard (24 March 2008). "Shusha Guppy: Singer and writer acclaimed for a memoir of her Persian childhood". The Independent. Retrieved 2 September 2010. Note: This obituary incorrectly refers to Shamsi as Shansi.
• "Shusha Guppy". The Daily Telegraph. 29 March 2008. Retrieved 2 September 2010. Shusha Guppy, who died on March 21 aged 72, was an Iranian-born writer, composer and singer, and a salonière of literary, cosmopolitan London

External links

• Shusha Guppy at Allmusic
• Shusha Guppy, A paean to kingship, The Guardian, Monday 18 February 2008. [1].
  Note: This is Shusha Guppy's valedictory Comment in The Guardian. It concludes with the words: "Well, the doctors have told me that my cancer is terminal and so I am having to dictate what is certainly my last piece of journalism."
• Shusha Guppy, ASHA Foundation.
• Shusha Guppy speaks in the documentary film on Omar Khayyām, Intoxicating Rhymes and Sobering Wine, YouTube (1 min).
• Shusha Guppy on her return to Iran, Woman's Hour, BBC Radio 4, 16 March 2006. [2] (8 min 35 sec).
• Shusha Guppy, School of Illumination, Sunday Feature, 45 minutes, BBC Radio 3, Sunday 19 March 2006, [3].
  Note: At present BBC offers no audio recording or a transcript of this programme. The website presents however an extensive bibliography.
• Some folk-songs sung by Shusha Guppy in the 1970s: Iranian.
  Listen specifically to:
  Silver Gun (from Shiraz), Wheat Flower (a harvest song), The Rain (from the Gilan Province), The Stars in Heaven (from Shiraz), On Top of the Hill (from Shiraz), The Silken Handkerchief (from the Fars Province), Darling Leila (from the Gilan Province), I Have Come to Ravish My Heart (from the Lorestan Province), The Lor Youth (a Bakhtiari-Tribe song), Lullaby (from Gorgan), Girl from Boyer-Ahmadi Tribe (from the Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province), My Beloved is Short (from the Fars Province), The Water Pipe, You Must Come to Me (from Mamasani County), Darling Dareyne (from the Mazandaran Province), Masnavi (a mystic chant from Rumi's Masnavi).
• Shusha Guppy, What Rumi Means for Muslims Today, Heart and Soul Feature, BBC Radio World Service, Friday 27 June 2008 — rebroadcast from November 2007, [4] (26 min 30 sec).
• Shusha Guppy, 'The Book of Kings' published in Parnassus (magazine), Vol. 30.

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