Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Googoosh was one of Iran’s most famous women, a child star who grew up to become a bona fide pop culture phenomenon. She released hit albums, starred in acclaimed films and saw women style their hair like hers.
But the Iranian Revolution changed everything: She was imprisoned and, upon her release, essentially silenced for 21 years. It wasn’t until 2000 that she was able to leave the country and begin performing again. So, at the dawn of the millennium, Googoosh launched her comeback.
“Everything in my body was shaking,” she says on a recent video call of her return to the stage.
Born Faegheh Atashin, she’s been known as Googoosh since birth. In her new memoir, “Googoosh: A Sinful Voice,” the singer recounts her journey through a difficult childhood, a celebrated young adulthood and the decades she was forced to abandon her career in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution.
“For 21 years, even I banned myself, because I was afraid of everything after this Revolution,” she says.
When Googoosh, now based in Los Angeles, was finally able to leave Iran and perform again, the singer noticed that the bond between her and the audience was different. “I was not singing; we were singing. We were performing,” says Googoosh. “Everybody was crying. That didn’t happen before.”
She adds, “After all these years, something changed in me, something changed in my people. Something changed in our lives and feelings, especially women.”
Ultimately, all this is what led to writing her story.
Googoosh’s co-author, Tara Dehlavi, presented the idea to her. Dehlavi’s mother had been friends with Googoosh in their youth in Iran, while Dehlavi herself was born outside of the country, after the Revolution.
“Over the years, I always thought it was shocking, especially, when she made her comeback, that the rest of the world doesn’t know about Googoosh, about this pop icon in the Middle East,” Dehlavi explains on the same video call, “that they can’t even imagine that there was a woman with that stardom, that kind of following, who was so avant-garde in her fashion and everything, to be silenced, and then be banished to silence for 21 years and then, at the age of 50, to do a comeback.”
Dehlavi had a simple question: “How come this book hasn’t been written?” So she asked Googoosh to write the memoir.
“She didn’t ask me. She forced me,” Googoosh counters with a chuckle.
“I don’t regret it, but that’s true,” Dehlavi responds.
While Googoosh says that, at first, she didn’t think her story would be so important for readers, she soon realized that it is. On one level, it’s the story of Iran before and after the Revolution. On another level, it’s about the persistence of art and culture even in the face of censorship.
Initially, the plan was for Dehlavi, whose background is in clinical psychology, to interview Googoosh about her life and then, eventually, they would bring a professional writer onto the project. But as they continued to work on the interviews, Dehlavi became “more protective” of keeping Googoosh’s voice intact.
“I was a bit worried that if we did give it away to someone who is not from this culture, particularly, maybe things will get lost in translation,” she says. And so, over years of interviews, A Sinful Voice became the book that Googoosh and Dehlavi wrote together, a first for both of them.
Unbeknownst to Googoosh, her music continued to spread throughout the Iranian diaspora during the years when she had to remain quiet. “I didn’t know that people are listening to my songs,” she recalls of this time. “I thought everything about Googoosh was finished.”
But her voice couldn’t really be silenced. That’s essentially the theme of Googoosh’s memoir.
“It is my message,” she says. “They couldn’t make me silent. At the beginning… they banned me and my voice and my performing, everything, even my name. They banned everything for 21 years, but finally, I came out of the cage.”
And it’s a message Googoosh is bringing to younger generations, too. “They don’t know how to speak Farsi, but they listen to my songs,” she says. “They can’t read in Farsi, but this book helped them to find out what our country was and what it is now. I think this is my mission, to give them this experience.”