Salar Abdoh is an Iranian novelist and essayist. He is the author of the novels The Poet Game (2000), Opium (2004), Tehran At Twilight (2014), Out of Mesopotamia (2020), A Nearby Country Called Love (2023), and the editor and translator of the anthology Tehran Noir (2014). He is also a director of the graduate program in Creative Writing at the City College of New York at the City University of New York.
Salar Abdoh was born in Tehran, Iran and also spent some time in England. When Abdoh was fourteen his family was forced to leave Iran for the US. Abdoh earned an undergraduate degree from U.C. Berkeley and received a Master's from the City College of New York.[ citation needed ]
Abdoh's first novel, The Poet Game, focuses on a young agent sent by a top-secret Iranian government agency to infiltrate a group of Islamic extremists in New York in order to keep them from acts of terror that might draw the US into a war in the Middle East. [1] Though the book was published in 2000, it received far greater attention following the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. [2] His second novel, Opium (2004) tells the story of a young American who used to work as a drug-runner along the Afghan/Iran border during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Years later, living in New York and trying to keep a low profile, his past suddenly catches up with him as the US is gearing up to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. Abdoh's third novel, Tehran At Twilight, a literary thriller reminiscent of Graham Greene's The Quiet American, depicts the limits of friendship, and betrayal, in a time of war and after. Simultaneously with this novel, in 2014 Abdoh also edited and translated Tehran Noir, a collection of noir stories from various Iranian writers about Tehran. By 2020, with the Publication of Out of Mesopotamia, a war novel based on his own experiences in the wars of the Middle East (Iraq & Syria), Abdoh told the story of a journalist who, as the New York Times book review noted, "Torn between war and art ... chooses both." [3]
Abdoh also co-wrote the play Quotations from a Ruined City with his older brother, Reza Abdoh, a world-famous avant-garde theater director. The play was first produced in 1994. [4]
Iraq, a country located in West Asia, largely coincides with the ancient region of Mesopotamia, often referred to as the cradle of civilization. The history of Mesopotamia extends back to the Lower Paleolithic period, with significant developments continuing through the establishment of the Caliphate in the late 7th century AD, after which the region became known as Iraq. Within its borders lies the ancient land of Sumer, which emerged between 6000 and 5000 BC during the Neolithic Ubaid period. Sumer is recognized as the world’s earliest civilization, marking the beginning of urban development, written language, and monumental architecture. Iraq's territory also includes the heartlands of the Akkadian, Neo-Sumerian, Babylonian, Neo-Assyrian, and Neo-Babylonian empires, which dominated Mesopotamia and much of the Ancient Near East during the Bronze and Iron Ages.
Hippie trail is the name given to an overland journey taken by members of the hippie subculture and others from the mid-1950s to the late 1970s travelling from Europe and West Asia through South Asia via countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh to Thailand. The hippie trail was a form of alternative tourism, and one of the key elements was travelling as cheaply as possible, mainly to extend the length of time away from home. The term "hippie" became current in the mid-to-late 1960s; "beatnik" was the previous term from the later 1950s.
Iran and the United States have had no formal diplomatic relations since 7 April 1980. Instead, Pakistan serves as Iran's protecting power in the United States, while Switzerland serves as the United States' protecting power in Iran. Contacts are carried out through the Iranian Interests Section of the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, D.C., and the US Interests Section of the Swiss Embassy in Tehran. In August 2018, Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei banned direct talks with the United States.
Neal Pollack is an American satirist, novelist, short story writer, and journalist. He lives in Austin, Texas. Pollack has written 10 books: The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature, Never Mind the Pollacks, Beneath the Axis of Evil, Alternadad,Stretch,Jewball, Downward-Facing Death, Open Your Heart,Repeat, and Keep Mars Weird. He is also a three-time Jeopardy! champion.
Roya Hakakian is an Iranian American Jewish journalist, lecturer, and writer. Born in Iran, she came to the United States as a refugee and is now a naturalized citizen. She is the author of several books, including an acclaimed memoir in English called Journey from the Land of No (Crown), Assassins of the Turquoise Palace (Grove/Atlantic), and A Beginner's Guide to America: For the Immigrant and the Curious (Knopf).
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books is a book by Iranian author and professor Azar Nafisi. Published in 2003, it was on the New York Times bestseller list for over one hundred weeks and has been translated into 32 languages.
Greater Iran or Greater Persia, also called the Iranosphere or the Persosphere, is an expression that denotes a wide socio-cultural region comprising parts of West Asia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, South Asia, and East Asia —all of which have been affected, to some degree, by the Iranian peoples and the Iranian languages.
James Robert Atlas was a writer, especially of biographies, as well as a publisher. He was the president of Atlas & Company and founding editor of the Penguin Lives Series.
The Shia Crescent is the notionally crescent-shaped region of the Middle East where the majority population is Shia or where there is a strong Shia minority in the population.
Reza Abdoh was an Iranian-born director and playwright known for large-scale, experimental theatrical productions, often staged in unusual spaces like warehouses and abandoned buildings.
Shahriar Mandanipour (Persian: شهریار مندنی پور; also Shahriar Mondanipour is an Iranian writer, journalist and literary theorist.
Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been embroiled in tense relations with the U.S. and its allies. Following the hostage crisis, both countries severed relations. Since then, both countries have been involved in numerous direct confrontations, diplomatic incidents, and proxy wars throughout the Middle East, which has caused the tense nature of the relationship between the two to be called an 'international crisis'. Both countries have often accused each other of breaking international law on several occasions. The U.S. has often accused Iran of sponsoring terrorism and of illegally maintaining a nuclear program, as well as using strong rhetoric against Israel, of which Iran has questioned its legitimacy and its right to exist while supporting Hamas, an antizionist terrorist group in the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, Iran has often accused the U.S. of human rights violations and of meddling in their affairs, especially within the Iranian Democracy Movement.
Iran–Iraq relations are the diplomatic and foreign relations between the two sovereign states of Iran and Iraq.
Bahman Mirza was a Qajar prince, literary scholar, and writer who lived in Iran and later the Russian Empire. The fourth son of the former crown prince Abbas Mirza, his career in Iran was marked by several governorships, including the province of Azerbaijan (1841–1847).
Reuel Marc Gerecht is an American writer and political analyst focused on the Middle East. He is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, focusing primarily on the Middle East, Islamic militancy, counterterrorism, and intelligence. He is a former director of the Project for the New American Century's Middle East Initiative and a former resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Earlier in his career Gerecht was a case officer at the CIA, primarily working on Middle Eastern targets.
The Axis of Resistance is a network of Iranian-backed militias and political groups in the Middle East, formed by Iran by uniting and grooming armed groups that are dedicated to confront the influence of United States and Israel in the Middle East, and shares hostility toward the countries. The U.S. designates most of these groups as terrorist organizations.
Anti-Sunnism is hatred of, prejudice against, discrimination against, persecution of, and violence against Sunni Muslims. It has also been described as "Sunniphobia", the "fear or hatred of Sunnism and Sunnites".
Out of Mesopotamia is a novel book written by Salar Abdoh and published in 2020. The books is narrated by Saleh, 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.
Aliyeh Ataei is an Iranian-Afghan novelist and screenplay writer who has written several books and short stories for multiple magazines such as Guernica and Michigan Quarterly Review. The main focus of her works is dedicated to the literature of immigration. She has won several literary awards, including Mehregan Adab.
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