David Chaffetz, author of A Journey through Afghanistan, is an independent researcher of Asian arts and literature. He has read Persian and Turkish at Harvard, and Arabic at Columbia, and has lived and travelled extensively in Asia. His new book, Three Asian Divas, has just been published.The diva is a nearly universal phenomenon. Chinese opera, especially in the Ming period, had famous singers who were also courtesans, similar to the early Venetian and Roman entertainers. Similar institutions existed in India, the tawaifs, and in Iran. Traditional Asian divas are however less well known and understood among English-language readers than the divas of Mozart and Puccini. Whether from Shiraz at the court of the Injuids, from Delhi during the twilight of the Moghuls, or from Yangzhou under the last Ming emperors, Asian divas were identifiably modern women. Though practicing classical and tradition-bound arts, they were economically independent, and were free to give or withhold love. Indeed, in many ways, they paved the way for the emergence of the modern woman in Asian societies.
Three Asian Divas brings to life an Iranian, an Indian and a Chinese diva, and in so doing highlights the diva’s social role and the significance of her contributions to art.
David here explains how he came to write Three Asian Divas.
