Local Author Brings the World Home

“You don’t have to speak Farsi,” the talk show host said as he smiled and shook my hand. “All you have to do is answer the questions. I’ll do all the translating.” And for the next two hours that’s exactly what he did as question followed question about the book that I’d written on my healing journey from child abuse victim to adult thriver.

The fact that I was doing a radio interview in LA didn’t surprise me; radio book tours have always been a popular way to bring media attention to recently published books, and mine had been receiving a lot lately. What surprised me, perhaps even stunned me, was the fact that I was sitting in an Iranian radio station in the middle of Universal City, CA surrounded by Iranian newspapers, magazines, and looking at walls covered with giant travel posters to Iran.

I’d always known that abuse, whether it was emotional, physical, verbal or sexual, existed in other cultures, but I’d been told (and believed) that it was never mentioned, and as the interview progressed I found myself wondering, “What am I doing here? Who is going to hear this broadcast? My book explores religious oppression why did the host invite me, of all people, to talk about this subject?” And so eventually I said, “With all due respect could I ask you a question?” He looked surprised and then nodded.

“Why am I here?” I went on. “I mean I know abuse exists in every culture but not many people are willing to talk about it and even fewer seem to be talking about religious oppression.”

His brilliant smile that had initially been so disarming was now filled with confidence. “Because, I’m interested in transformational work and it’s time my people took a closer look at themselves. Your book intersects with my culture. Your book is a beginning. It allows people to start a dialog about abuse and even if that’s all we can do for now, then that’s what we will do.”

And so it was that the sound engineer took a copy of the show to play it for his girlfriend who was also from Iran, and the radio show went out in Farsi to the thousands of Iranians living in LA and from there it went into the world. And the dialog began.

I live in a small town. My book is not a critical thesis about the effects of child abuse. Slow Hope is simply a story, told to the best of my writer’s ability, about what happened to me as a child and how God and I survived it together. I am awestruck by the book’s fascinating journey.

“Transformational work.” It‘s a phrase the talk show host used and it keeps going through my mind. Transformations can occur in any culture. Courage can be grown. Hope lies in the effort.