Category: Literature
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The Islamic Science Fiction Then and Now
Centuries before invisible men, time travel, flying machines and journeys to other planets and before the Western Imagination, there was the Abbasid caliphs that established the city of Baghdad and with that came The Islamic Golden age. Almost 1300 years ago, The scientific endeavours of Islamic empire was stuffed with the scientific curiosities that continue to flourish for…
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A guy in our office is going through a divorce
He is distracted and depressed and hardly focused. He is constantly complaining, skipping on office work and missing deadlines. And to top it all off, he is forgetful and takes forever to do a simple task. Last week after seeing all the backed up work and more that needed to get done, I barged in…
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I’m not your girlfriend honey, just be fast
The door bell rang and the boy ran to the door monitor and picked up the phone with no hesitation. Right before, he hit the table beside the wall and the vase fell down on the floor. He bent down, grabbed the vase and put the artificial flowers back inside, while answering the phone.…
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I am still *mesmerized*
It was midday, almost noon. I was at the office and dad called, wondering about my plans for lunch. And I talked about not being able to make it home in time. Dad suggested I’d go to his place and join him for lunch. “I got some calf liver”, he said, “and I’ll barbecue some…
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First Illustrated Persian Translation of Allan Poe’s The Raven
Allan Poe’s “The Raven” had been translated to Persian in the past, but this edition is a distinguished artifice because of its approach to both publication and translation. First of all, this is the first illustrated Persian translation of Allan Poe’s masterpiece. Secondly, it provides an introduction to the thought process and rationale behind the translation as well as…
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Milan Kundera’s New Novel in 13 Years
Milan Kundera’s New novel The Feast of Insignificance is a “wryly comic yet deeply serious glance at the ultimate insignificance of life and politics, told through the daily lives of four friends in modern-day Paris”. Said chief executive Stephen Page: “It feels incredibly relevant to the world we live in now. It’s very funny, and also…
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Tehran Noir – Collection of Stories
Launched with the summer ’04 award-winning best seller Brooklyn Noir, Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies. Each book is comprised of all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. Includes brand-new stories by: Gina B. Nahai, Salar Abdoh, Lily Farhadpour, Azardokht Bahrami, Yourik…
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No More Clichés – A Poem by Octavio Paz
Beautiful face That like a daisy opens its petals to the sun So do you Open your face to me as I turn the page. Enchanting smile Any man would be under your spell, Oh, beauty of a magazine. How many poems have been written to you? How many Dantes have written to you, Beatrice?…
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Men Without Father
When our plane landed, no one from the family had come to the airport to greet us. I thought maybe because I hadn’t told them the exact time of our arrival, they weren’t able to make it. Early in the morning we hit the road, going north. Our daughter was sleeping in the car, when…
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In Khorasan – Iran,Taxi Drivers Are Poets Too
Due to my work in beverage industry, I travel to the city of Mashhad, Khorasan Province, quite often, once a week at times. Mashhad is the center of Iran’s beverage industry and the city’s airport is also a point of origin and destination between several cities in Iran. As part of my stay in Mashhad,…
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When Ancient Eve is In love
Simin Behbahani’s poems paint one of the most nuanced narratives of modern Iranian society. Her poems offer apertures into the daily life of Iranians, and reveal its subtleties and paradoxes. “From the Street,” a series of poems written between 1983-85, are realist representations of the uncomfortable economic and moral realities that plague Iran; the stories…
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Anthology of Short Story by Iranian Diaspora
Published as an e-book, Incubus, ( بختك-“Bakhtak“in Farsi) is a collection of fifty seven horror, at times blunt, stories written in Farsi by different Iranian writers, living inside and outside Iran. According to his forward to the book, Mehdi Ganjavi, who along with Mehrnaz Mansoori and Naser FarzinFar, oversaw the project from start to finish,…
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Tehran, City of Lies
Ramita Navai is a British-Iranian writer and journalist. She works as a reporter for Channel 4’s foreign affairs series Unreported World. Her investigative journalism from the countries that struggle through crises such as Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Egypt, El Salvador and specially Syria brought her an Emmy award. While working as Tehran correspondent for THE TIMES…
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the Craziness of Being a Woman
Laila Kordbacheh is a woman whose poetry unlocks the innermost fragile layers of being a woman. It is soft, yet stubborn. It is bold, yet beautiful. It is frank yet tactful. She takes her audience through a journey of discovery, of self doubt, at times, the most unattainable feelings filling the heart of a woman.…
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Bitter Ending, an Iranian Short Story
Nobody can even think of ignoring the three decades of social, political and psychological turbulence in Iranian society. The combination of Iran’s social mobility and demographic behavior has resulted in nothing but uncertainty. To make it more interesting, add the short story “Bitter Ending” jam-packed with skepticism by Vahid Sharifian, the acclaimed Iranian conceptual Artist.…
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Reza Ghassemi, "The Spell Chanted by Lambs"
Reza Ghassemi has written and stages many plays first of which was at the age of eighteen. Before the Islamic revolution his plays won prestigious awards in Iran, but after the revolution they were banned from the theater. This, among other reasons, encouraged him to immigrate to France where he pursued his career as a…
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Man in the Mirror
In his own words, Hossain Rad’s poetry is “the struggles of a bare man in the mirror, with his emotions and sensitivities, so raw, so untouched… “We borrow our souls from women,” He explains, “just like goddesses … We care, we evolve into them so deeply, letting them becoming a part of us, and we…
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Philip Roth: The novelist’s obsession is with language
Philip Roth‘s 1979 classic, The Ghost Writer, will be spotlighted at Stanford at a February 25 “Another Look” book club event (see below here). Cynthia Haven interviewed the author in preparation for the event. His weapon-of-choice was the email interview, rather than a telephone conversation. Roth was precise, nuanced and to the point. He turned…
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Dystopian Trilogy for Teens
Veronica Roth (born August 19, 1988) is an American author known for her debut New York times best selling novels Divergent and Insurgent. Her third book titled Allegiant, completing the Divergent trilogy, was released last year. She is the recipient of the Goodreads Favorite Book of 2011 and the 2012 winner for Best Young Adult…
