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Eye of the Beholder [1]

Fiction [2]
6.28.23

In Nicole Krauss’s short story “Seeing Ershadi,” [3] published in the New Yorker in 2018, a ballet dancer becomes obsessed with the actor Homayoun Ershadi, who plays Mr. Badii in the iconic Iranian film Taste of Cherry directed by Abbas Kiarostami. The story takes a turn when the protagonist travels to Japan with her dance company and sees Ershadi in a crowd, then follows him believing she must save the actor from the suicide he commits in the film. With a vividly convincing narrative voice, Krauss’s story embodies the impact great art can have, how a performance can haunt a viewer into seeing their life in a new light. This week, try writing a story that captures the relationship between a viewer and a work of art. What haunts your protagonist into reassessing something in their life?


Source URL:https://www.pw.org/content/eye_of_the_beholder_1

Links
[1] https://www.pw.org/content/eye_of_the_beholder_1 [2] https://www.pw.org/genre/fiction [3] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/05/seeing-ershadi