From Word To Word

I bought a copy of Jacques Derrida’s Limited Inc at Macondo books yesterday, and it was inscribed,

Mani Haghighi
21 October 97
Montreal

I googled the name, as I always do when I find a reasonably informative inscription, because I love the story of a book as much as I love the story in a book.  Usually I discover nothing very interesting from these searches: a facebook page perhaps, or a business profile, but most often nothing that would even positively identify the former owner of my book.  My search for Mani Haghighi, however, was rather more informative. Apparently Haghighi is a well-known Iranian filmmaker, the director Abadan, Men at Work, Hamoon Bazha, and Canaan, and the writer of Fireworks Wednesday.  His Men at Work in particular is considered to be a modern classic of Iranian cinema.

Now, I expect that you are probably as skeptical as I first was about whether Mani Haghighi the Iranian filmmaker is the same Mani Haghighi who used to own the book I just bought, but the facts do seem to fit.  It turns out that Haghighi took an undergraduate in philosophy from McGill University, which explains why the book was inscribed in Montreal, and then he took a masters in philosophy from the University of Guelph, which explains why I found it in my local bookstore.  I think these two facts alone are more than enough evidence to suggest that the book in my hand was once owned by Mani Haghighi the filmmaker.

What remains unexplained, however, is why I only found the book now, thirteen years later.  I doubt that Haghighi retains a residence in Guelph, especially considering that he went on to further post-graduate work at Trent University and has since been making films in Iran.  Perhaps he gave it to a friend before he left who just recently sold it to Macondo.  Perhaps he sold it to a used bookstore those many years ago, and then it was purchased by someone else, and then it was resold to Macondo, and then I finally discovered it yesterday morning.  Whatever the case, I now find myself distantly and mysteriously linked to this man who was living in the same city and studying at the same university as I was more than a decade ago.  We never chanced to meet then, but I am now reading something that he also once read.

I think I will try to find one of his films.