Reding diary4

Date：1 June 2009
Name and URL：
IN THE NEWS / Iranian writer finds her voice in Japanese
www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20090531TDY03101.htm

Text:
OSAKA--Shirin Nezammafi, a 29-year-old Iranian, recently won the 108th Bungakukai Shinjinsho--an award for new writers run by Bungakukai, a monthly literature magazine.
"I won't be able to think of myself as a writer until I write a piece of work I'm satisfied with," Nezammafi said after scooping the renowned literary award for budding authors.
Nezammafi's award-winning work, titled "Shiroi Kami" (White Paper), is set in Iran during the 1980s. It depicts a romance between high school students during the Iran-Iraq War.
The war ended when Nezammafi was 8 years old. She remembers returning home from an air raid evacuation shelter to find the windows of her home shattered by bombs.
"Wars are normal in Iran. But I thought it would put a fresh slant [on the issue] by writing about it in Japanese," Nezammafi said.
After graduating from a Tehran high school, she was drawn to Japan by the country's science and technology.
While a third-year student at Kobe University, an "interesting topics" event was held at the university. When Nezammafi showed her friend what she had written in Japanese on two A4-sized sheets of paper, her friend found it interesting enough to turn her writing into a comic.
Nezammafi gained confidence writing in Japanese, and in 2007 she won a literary award for foreign students for "Salam," a story based on her experiences with refugees she met during her part-time work as an interpreter.
"Writing is very normal for me," Nezammafi said. "I was blessed to meet friends, teachers, and superiors in Japan. From now on, I'd like to work hard at filling in my own 'white paper.'"
Nezammafi works at Panasonic Corp. as a systems engineer.

Summary:
　大阪の29歳のイタリア人女性Shirin Nezammafiさんが、第108回文学新人賞を受賞した。
受賞作品の題名は「白い紙」で、1980年代のイランの話である。
イランイラク戦争の間の高校生の恋愛を描写したものだ。
テフラン高校を卒業した後、彼女は日本の科学技術を描いた。
　彼女は日本で、執筆の信頼を得て、
2007年に彼女が通訳者としてのパートタイムの仕事で出会った難民との経験を土台にした物語「Salam」という作品で文学の賞を受賞した。
「書くことは私にとって普通のことです。」と彼女は言う。
彼女はパナソニックでシステムエンジニアとして働いている。

What I find interesting:
出身国での戦争など、様々な困難を乗り越えたからこそ、
すばらしい作品ができたんだと思いました。
自分の経験を、良いもの悪いものに限らず、生かしていくことができるのは
とても素晴らしいことだと思います。

New words/expressions I learn:
refugee　難民
literary　文芸の
depict　描写する