One Woman's War: Da (Mother)

One Woman's War: Da (Mother) is Seyyedeh Zahra Hosseini's memoir about the Iran–Iraq War (1980–88) written by Seyedeh Azam Hosseini (the author has the same family name as the narrator but there is no relation between them). Seyedeh Zahra Hosseini was 17 when the flames of the war was ignited. One Woman's War: Da (Mother) is a part of the recorded oral memoirs of Iranian women who participated the Iran-Iraq War and in fact is the result of more than a thousands hours of conversation between Seyedeh Zahra Hosseini and seyyedeh Azam Hosseini. Da means "mother" in Kurdish and luri and Hosseini has tried to remind the resistance and suffering of Iranian mothers during the eight years of Iran–Iraq War by selecting this title. This book is of the most effective books in memoir writing of Iran–Iraq War, as many of the experts believe.

Publishers
The book was first published in Persian by Sureye Mehr Publication Company in 2008. One Woman's War: Da (Mother) soon became one of the best sellers of Tehran 23rd International Book Fair. In 2014, the book was translated from Persian to English by Paul Sprachman, a professor at Rutgers university, and published by Mazda Publishers. Hosseini's memoir is being translated into Urdu and Turkish.

The narrator
Seyyedeh Zahra Hosseini is an Iranian Kurd whose parents used to live in Iraq before her birth and she was born there in 1963. Her parents came to Iran When she was a child and they chose to live in Khorramshahr. The father of the family was hired by municipality after a period of confusion. She was the second child among the six children of the family and quited education when she finished the fifth grade. She was grown in a religious family so that she and her brother were active during and after the revolution. when the war broke out Seyyedeh Zahra helped the Iranian war in a variety of ways such as serving in cemetery. But washing and shrouding of the war martyrs used to make her faint at the beginning of her service. Then she participated in firefights and was dangerously injured near her spine. The injury forced her to leave the battlefield and spend a month in hospital.

Narrative
One Woman's War: Da (Mother) is mainly about the memories of Seyyede Zahra Hosseini in Basra and Khorramshahr. The years of city siege is the core part of this memoir. This book consists of three parts. The first part is about the early years of Seyyedeh Zahra's life in Iraq, the family migration to Iran under the force of Ba'ath regime and the early years of being in Iran. The second part of this book is about the narrator's activities in nursing the injured fighters, helping in delivering the medical and food supplies to the front line, preparing the bodies of the (washing and shrouding) the martyrs corpses for burial and participating in firefights. The final part is about Hosseini's recovery from injury and her married life.

In the news
On 13 July 2014, Seyyede Zahra Hosseini had a conversation with Aryn Baker, the Middle East Bureau Chief for TIME. As a motivation for writing the book, she mentioned the negative propaganda and soft war against Islamic Republic of Iran. "A staff from Lebanon decided to translate the book in Arabic under the supervision of Sayyed Hassan Nasrollah, when the 100th print of the was unveiled", she added. Hosseini asked Aryn Baker to reflect the recent conflicts, casualties and losses in Gaza and Baker responded:"We've recently reported the disasters in TIME, and UN has condemned Israel for the crimes occurred in Gaza". Hosseini also criticized the US government where Baker, the American reporter, asked to focus on the subject of the conversation not other issues.

The book was unveiled at the Iran permanent missions to the United Nations located in New York. The translator, Paul Sparchman, admired the book and said: "I got a deeper understanding of the book, after the conversation I made with seyyedeh Zahra Hossein, the narrator of Da. "I found the difference between Iran-Iraq war and other wars, after I read Da. It was, as Iranian say, a sacred defense and full of sprituality," he added.

TV program adaptation
Da narrative TV collection by Sina Ataiyan was broadcast from IRIB first channel. Ali Taghipour, the producer of this collection, said that this collection consisted of 120 parts each 15 minutes. He claimed that they were faithful to the context of the book One Woman's War.