Thu 10 Jan 2019 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.
Asia Society
725 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10021

Join us for the launch of Rabeah Ghaffari’s compelling debut novel To Keep the Sun Alive which portrays the 1979 Iranian Revolution through family dramas and personal struggles. Author and filmmaker Ghaffari will be joined in a conversation by artist Shirin Neshat.

Rabeah Ghaffari was born in Iran and lives in New York City. She is a filmmaker and writer whose work has appeared in the Tribeca Film Festival. Her collaborative fiction with artist Shirin Neshat was featured in Reflections on Islamic Art (Bloomsbury/Qatar) and her documentary, The Troupe, featured Tony Kushner and received funding from the Ford Foundation and Lincoln Center. Her most recent feature-length screenplay, The Inheritors, was commissioned by producer/costume designer Patricia Field. To Keep the Sun Alive is her first novel.

Shirin Neshat is an internationally recognized Iranian visual artist who lives in New York City. Known primarily for her work in film, video and photography Neshat has had a long association with Asia Society which presented her video installation ”Tooba,” in 2003 and in 2008 she was the co-curator of the exhibition Ardeshir Mohasses: Art and Satire in Iran. In 2017, Neshat directed her first opera, Aida, at the Salzburg Music Festival and her most recent feature film Looking for Oum Kulthum opened at the Venice Film Festival.