Nahid Kazemi reflects on the long process of healing after living under extreme censorship in Iran

The Invisible Cage is an original essay by Nahid Kazemi. It is part of Healing, a special series of new, original writing featuring work by the English-language winners of the 2022 Governor General's Literary Awards, presented in partnership with the Canada Council for the Arts. Read more works from Healing here. 

Imagine a lively bird that is full of passion to fly, but she has been held captive in a cage for a very long time. For years she had to accept wounds to her body and soul to survive. The bird awaits the day for the cage to open to reach freedom, dreaming about the moment every day, imagining how she would instantly soar high into the sky, but when the day came and the cage door got opened, she could barely fly with all those wounds. The wounds needed to be treated and the body had to be healed.

This is the story of me and all the other creative people who had to work with extreme censorship to survive.- Nahid Kazemi

This is the story of me and all the other creative people who had to work with extreme censorship to survive. Almost all professions in Iran, particularly those related to media in general, are extremely controlled to adhere to the ideology of the Islamic regime. Censorship is a multi-layered widespread established system that controls everyone from writers, translators, publishers to illustrators, filmmakers and artists. Restrictions and prohibitions are set in such a way that every piece of work reflects the ideology that the government wants to promote and any image or content that is likely to undermine it will be suppressed. This system has so much power that the artists have no choice but to accept censorship, otherwise they may face various consequences depending on the extent to which they cross the red lines, such as being banned from working, imprisoned or exiled. 

The nature of illustrators' work is such that monitoring authorities can easily not allow the publication of an image and force the artist to re-illustrate many times until achieving an authorized version for printing. Therefore, illustrators often get tired of struggling and fighting with all the monitoring and wasting their time and energy. As they are aware of the obstacles they will face in printing eventually, they would compromise with all the limitations and do self-censor during the creative work. Self-censorship is like a wound that they inflict on themselves, on their artistic identity. 

In my field of work, among all the forbidden issues, the female body was — and still is — the most sensitive red line. Hijab is one of the main concepts that the Islamic regime in Iran promotes. For many years, the hijab has been imposed on Iranian women and on every picture that is supposed to represent them, even on little girls in illustrations and female cartoon characters. I had many struggles with this compulsion back then. I remember that in one of my works, the characters were female and I chose to draw them as worms. Actually, I chose the characters as worms so I didn't have to deal with the issue of hijab and probable problems of female body shapes, but the publisher said that even worms should wear hijab and have sleeves.

The censorship was not only limited to hijab. There were too many other forbidden issues that I am sure still exist today.

After my immigration to Canada, the freedom that I wanted was finally given to me, but for the first six months, I couldn't work without self-censoring. I found out that all the images of the people I drew in Iran didn't have any feelings. The actual restrictions were gone, but the invisible long-term effect of those red lines still was limiting my mind as if I had lost my creativity.

I couldn't believe that I was allowed to draw people with their pet animals, especially their dogs, which was forbidden in Iran.- Nahid Kazemi

I took time to know the new world around me. I tried to integrate into society and started to draw people in the parks, beaches and wherever I could see body freedom. I couldn't believe that I was allowed to draw people with their pet animals, especially their dogs, which was forbidden in Iran. I attended some drawing groups, especially nude drawing courses at art universities. It really was a healing process for me that helped me to find my artistic identity and drawing style. Maybe it is the wounds of the past that make what I do now mean so much to me. As attributed to Rumi "The wound is the place where the light enters you." 

The inspiration

Nahid Kazemi: "I'd like to tell you the story of a bird that was held captive in a cage for years and had to hurt itself to survive. Imagine the day when the cage door was opened and this bird reached freedom, but it couldn't fly with all those wounds even though it had dreamed of doing so. First, the wounds had to be treated, the body had to be healed to fly, to soar.

"This is the experience of almost every author, illustrator and creative person who has to work under the shadow of a dictatorship with many restrictions and engage in self-censorship to survive. In this essay, I share my experience of healing from the damages that extreme restrictions and self-censorship had done to my creativity, my mind and even my soul, and how I healed and regained them in a free open environment in Canada."

About Nahid Kazemi

Nahid Kazemi is an Iranian Canadian multi-disciplinary artist, author-illustrator from Montreal. Her other books include Shahrzad & The Angry King, I'm Glad That You're Happy, and Over the Rooftops, and Under the Moon by Jon Arno Lawson. The Sour Cherry Tree, written by Naseem Hrab and illustrated by Kazemi, won the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award for young people's literature — illustrated books. 

About the series Healing

CBC Books asked the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award winners to contribute an original piece of writing on the theme of healing. The Invisible Cage was Nahid Kazemi's contribution to the series. 

Read the rest of the series:

• Na-naan-dah-wih-i-way by Eli Baxter
• When Big Healing Comes in Small Ways by Dorothy Dittrich
• This Story is Against Resilience, Supports Screaming As Needed by Jen Ferguson
• Lilly in the Wintertime by Sheila Heti
• Some Notes on the Requirement of Hope by Naseem Hrab
• Circumference by Annick MacAskill
• Possessions by Judith Weisz Woodsworth