Iran Fiction

A rich and varied collection of contemporary short stories, extracts from novels, and poetry that will go a long way toward informing the English-speaking world of the latest developments in Iranian literature. This sampling - or to use the Farsi term golchine, a bouquet - provides a window onto an important but sorely neglected segment of world culture. We hope it will also serve to awaken further interest in the work and in translations of Iranian novelists and poets.

Pack your bags! We're headed to Iran. On this whirlwind tour, you'll learn all about the country's landscape, culture, people, and more. We'll explore Iran's sandy deserts and the ancient ruins of Persepolis, take a tour of famous places of prayer, and hear about an Iranian soccer match! A special section introduces Iran's capital, language, and population. Hop on board and take a fun-filled look at your world.

Darius Kellner speaks better Klingon than Farsi, and he knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian ones. He’s a Fractional Persian - half, his mom’s side - and his first-ever trip to Iran is about to change his life. Darius has never really fit in at home, and he’s sure things are going to be the same in Iran. His clinical depression doesn’t exactly help matters, and trying to explain his medication to his grandparents only makes things harder. Then Darius meets Sohrab, the boy next door, and everything changes.

Together, Hafez, a giant of world literature; Jahan Malek Khatun, an eloquent princess; and Obayd-e Zakani, a dissolute satirist, represent one of the most remarkable literary flowerings of any era. Here Dick Davis, an award-winning poet widely considered "our finest translator of Persian poetry" (The Times Literary Supplement), presents a diverse selection of some of the best poems by these world-renowned authors and shows us the spiritual and secular aspects of love, in varieties embracing every aspect of the human heart.

Primer libro de relatos de David Torres en el que se apuntan los temas y mimbres que irán estando presentes en el resto de su obra: el cuidado por la prosa, el lirismo, la meta literatura y una profunda conciencia social que impregna cada página. Una obra sólida de trazas carverianas y borgianas con una forma a la altura de su fondo.

In 1892, Gertrude Bell visited Persia (now Iran) shortly after the appointment of her uncle, Sir Frank Lascelles, as British minister in Tehran. Three years later came Persian Pictures, Gertrude Bell’s first written work, which presents a series of vivid sketches of Persian culture and society at the time. Bell explores various cities and landscapes, and encounters local characters along the way, providing a unique perspective on Persian life and customs.

One the eve of the Shah of Iran's exile, Siamak and Gazaleh, two young offspring of prominent Iranian families, are joined by marriage. One of their guests is Phillipe, a Frenchman whose parents own a business in Tehran. After the wedding, Phillipe invites his two friends, Rezah and Ashin to Ramsar on the Caspian where his family owns a seaside villa. There, Phillipe receives a disturbing call from his mother.

De licencias y obsesiones borgeanas se impregna este primer libro de relatos de asombrosa destreza verbal e imaginativa y, a juzgar por estas páginas, partidario de un estilo literario y de creaciones meta literarias.

Three decades after Khomeinist thugs raided the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Westerners are puzzled by Iran. As a nation, Iranians still like the United States. As a revolutionary regime, however, Iran is the principal bastion of anti-Americanism. From Ayatollah Khomeini's "historic mission" to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's messianic campaign in the name of the "Hidden Imam," The Persian Night depicts a trajectory that will most likely lead to war.

1953: Der junge Journalist Eddy McLaine und sein Fotograf Bruno Matthiesen machen sich mit einem ausgebauten VW-Bus auf die weite Reise von Deutschland in den Iran. Begeistert von der fremden Welt des Orients und der iranischen Gastfreundschaft, gelingt es den aufgeschlossenen jungen Männern schnell, Kontakte zu knüpfen. Doch der Iran steht am Scheideweg zwischen Tradition und Moderne – Teheran ist ein Pulverfass und Eddy und Bruno sind mittendrin. Wenn jetzt noch herauskommt, dass Bruno und er viel mehr sind als nur Kollegen, könnte es für sie beide lebensgefährlich werden.

È l’estate del 1981 e la famiglia che sta per atterrare all’aeroporto di Teheran è quella dell’appena nominato ambasciatore d’Italia in Persia. Da subito la famiglia è proiettata in una quotidianità fatta di violenza, di divieti, di donne velate di nero e di uomini che imbracciano armi, mentre a incombere su tutto c’è l’inquietante figura dell’onnipresente Ayatollah Khomeini.

It’s 1979, and thirteen-year-old Joseph Nissan can’t help but notice that small-town Texas has something in common with Revolution-era Iran: an absence of fellow Jews. And in such a small town it seems obvious that a brown kid like him was bound to make friends with Latinos—which is a plus, since his new buds, the Ybarra twins, have his back. But when the Iran hostage crisis, two neighborhood bullies, and the local reverend’s beautiful daughter put him in all sorts of danger, Joseph must find new ways to cope at home and at school.

From Tehran to Los Angeles, The Luminous Heart of Jonah S. is a sweeping saga that tells the story of the Soleymans, an Iranian Jewish family tormented for decades by Raphael's Son, a crafty and unscrupulous financier who has futilely claimed to be an heir to the family's fortune. Forty years later in contemporary Los Angeles, Raphael's Son has nearly achieved his goal - until he suddenly disappears, presumed by many to have been murdered. The possible suspects are legion.

There is something of both the absolutely spectacular and positively disgraceful about Tehran. But most writers around the world are inclined to think that their own sprawling metropolis is the capital of every imaginable vice and crime, of impossible love and tenderness and cruelty and malice in measures that seldom exist anywhere else. For me, Tehran's case is no different - except that there really is a difference here. The city may be a hothouse of decadence, a den of inequity, all that. But it still exists under the watchful eye of a very unique entity, the Islamic Republic.

Saleh Abdoh, the narrator of Out of Mesopotamia, is a middle-aged Iranian journalist who moonlights as a writer for one of Iran's most popular TV shows, but cannot keep himself away from the front lines in neighboring Iraq and Syria. There, the fight against the Islamic State is a proxy war, an existential battle, a declaration of faith, and, for some, a passing weekend affair. After weeks spent dodging RPGs and witnessing acts of savagery and stupidity, he returns to his civilian life of Tehran bookstore readings and trendy art openings, finding it to be unbearably dislocating.

Three years after the Revolution, Tehran looks like a boneyard. Shahed has returned from California to his homeland to face the ghost of his father, to find out who betrayed him as a child, to recover something that might make him feel alive. Witnessing the brutalities of militant fundamentalists, he wishes his exuberant hustler of a father were alive again to kick the mullahs and their vicious crusade out of Iran. Shahed conjures up his life as a twelve-year-old, superimposing on the grim streets the bizarre exploits of his lusty father and his crazy cohorts in the days of the Shah.

Eine unheilvolle alte Allianz bedroht das Gleichgewicht der Weltmächte. Präsident Jack Ryan kämpft an allen Fronten: Während es innenpolitisch in den USA hoch hergeht, rückt in Osteuropa Russland in die Ukraine vor. Dann gelangen zwei russische Atomraketen in den Iran. Hängt beides miteinander zusammen? Und was hat die neue iranische Rebellenbewegung damit zu tun? Die gibt sich zwar zunächst als Verbündeter aus, macht sich jedoch schnell höchstverdächtig. Langsam entwirren sich die Fäden eines perfiden Komplotts.

Baltimora, 15 agosto 1997. Brad e Bitsy Donaldson, una coppia molto americana, e Sami e Ziba Yazdan, marito e moglie iraniano-americani, si trovano all'aeroporto. Il momento è carico di emozioni e di aspettative, perché le due coppie, con i parenti al seguito, stanno aspettando il volo dalla Corea per prendere in consegna le loro bambine appena adottate. Contro ogni previsione, tra due famiglie piuttosto diverse nasce una lunga amicizia.

Dies ist die Lebensgeschichte von Barry Seal. Er war der wohl größte Drogenschmuggler der US-Geschichte. Er hatte Freunde ganz oben in Washington. Ende der 70er Jahre flog er wöchentlich bis zu 1,5 Tonnen Kokain in die USA - über Mena, Arkansas. Als Seal dabei "versehentlich" verhaftet wurde, kam er dank eines Freibriefs des jungen Oberstaatsanwalts von Arkansas und späteren US-Präsidenten, Bill Clinton, prompt aus der Untersuchungshaft wieder frei.

When a nuclear-empowered Iran begins throwing its weight around the Persian Gulf, the U.S. uneasily stands by, its military weakened by years of budget cuts and unpopular, inconclusive police actions. But the new President realizes there is one weapon he can use: the newest secret cell of the CIA's Intelligence Support Agency, code-named Future Flight.