The Typewriter Still Smells of Leaflets, Blood, and Torture…
It was never just a typewriter.
For some,
it meant death.
For others,
life imprisonment.
And for some,
it became a doorway to immortality.
That old machine carried me back to the 1970s —
to our own turbulent decade in Iran,
to years when owning a typewriter
could mean execution,
brutal torture,
or a lifetime behind bars.
Years of hidden cyanide capsules beneath the tongue.
Years of safe houses,
underground meetings,
and being constantly prepared
for a raid by SAVAK,
the Shah’s political police.
I had wandered across Latin America
before I stumbled upon this small pizza shop in Costa Rica.
They baked pizza over wood fire and stone,
and the smell of burnt wood and warm bread
felt strangely familiar —
like memory itself rising from the ashes.
The warmth of Julia,
one of the workers there,
and the deeply human atmosphere of the place
made me stay.
And then suddenly,
I saw it.
The typewriter.
I froze.
For a few seconds,
time stopped.
That machine pulled me back
to the years of blood and resistance,
to the years of comrades and fallen dreamers,
to a time when people could be executed
simply for owning a typewriter
or distributing a single leaflet.
I remembered comrades like Javad Salahi,
and so many others,
who became immortal
through words written in secrecy.
I remembered my own life in 1978,
the endless fear and hardship
that surrounded something as simple
as a typewriter.
Back then, some comrades had to secretly “confiscate” one at night,
moving it from one safe house to another
with trembling hands and sleepless eyes.
And now, decades later,
in a quiet corner of Latin America,
I found myself standing face to face
with that same symbol again.
For a moment,
my eyes filled with tears.
I stood there silently,
staring at the machine.
One of the workers noticed my reaction.
With kindness and curiosity,
she invited me into another part of the place,
and we spoke for hours.
I told her about those years —
about underground leaflets,
midnight printing sessions,
the terror of sudden raids,
the sound of SAVAK agents at the door,
and comrades whose only crime
was writing.
She herself was an artist,
and she listened carefully,
as if she could feel something beneath the words —
something that only suffering and art
can truly carry across cultures.
There, in that distant place,
I remembered Shahpour Mohammadalipour
and many others
whose families still do not know
what truly happened to them.
That machine revived them all.
And suddenly,
I remembered my mother.
The same mother who once hid a typewriter —
one Maryam had obtained —
beneath her chador
and carried it past newly empowered SAVAK agents
with astonishing courage.
It is strange…
For many people,
a typewriter is only an old object.
But for us,
it was sometimes an entire history.
A history of fear,
friendship,
resistance,
torture,
and hope.
And there,
in that faraway corner of the world,
I once again remembered all the comrades —
especially those
who lost their lives
simply because of a typewriter.
— Naser Kamali
Costa Rica
May 8, 2026
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