Birth
Soraya was the eldest child and only daughter of Khalil Esfandiary, a Bakhtiari nobleman and Iranian ambassador to West Germany in the 1950s, and his Russian-born German wife Eva Karl. She had one sibling, a younger brother, Bijan. She was born in the English Missionary Hospital in Isfahan on 22 June 1932.
Her family had long been involved in the Iranian government and diplomatic corps. An uncle, Sardar Assad, was a leader in the Iranian constitutional movement of the early 20th century.
Read more about this topic: Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiari
Famous quotes containing the word birth:
“But whoever gives birth to useless children, what would you say of him except that he has bred sorrows for himself, and furnishes laughter for his enemies.”
—Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)
“At birth man is offered only one choice—the choice of his death. But if this choice is governed by distaste for his own existence, his life will never have been more than meaningless.”
—Jean-Pierre Melville (1917–1973)
“Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,
The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,
No fairy tale nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)