Shahriar Mandanipour

This collection is an exploration of life in all its facets, set against the backdrop of contemporary Iran. Mandanipour's prose is generally pretty dark but evocative and introspective, inviting readers to reflect on the characters' struggles and triumphs. Each story challenges preconceptions and stereotypes about Iran and its people while offering nuanced views of how they contend with the peculiarities of their society.

While "Seasons of Purgatory" is undoubtedly a powerful and moving collection, I found its fantastical elements and the nonlinear structure of its narratives to be challenging at times.… (mere)

Érase una vez en Teherán, un narrador cansado de novelas tristes y con ganas de escribir una historia de amor feliz, llena de caricias y besos, pero Irán hoy es una tierra donde no existe libertad de expresión. Así, para hablar de amor, el escritor elige a Sara y Dara, dos jóvenes estudiantes que se encuentran por primera vez en una biblioteca y viven su relación a través de los libros que intercambian. Marcando ciertas palabras en las páginas de El pequeño príncipe, La insostenible levedad del ser o de algunos de los mejores poemas de la literatura erótica persa, ellos van tejiendo una nueva y extraña intimidad que comparten con el lector. ¿Lograrán Sara y Dara un final feliz para su aventura? ¿Conseguirá nuestro autor burlar la censura?… (mere)

This is a collection of short stories written by Iranian author Shahriar Mandanipour and translated by Sara Khalili. Although the author had to leave Iran and now lives in California, the stories are set in Iran during and after the Iran-Iraq war, a war Shahriar served in. The stories range in tone from sad to angry and all reference a loss of some sort.

The story that most sticks in my mind is King of the Graveyard, about the parents of a dead man searching for his grave in a waste field, always worried about being seen by those in the cemetery. There's also The Color of Midday Fire, where after a child is killed by a leopard and her father, a veteran of the war, reluctantly goes to hunt it down. There's a melancholy feel to these stories, of broken men and a country in which everyone is suspicious of everyone else.

It was harder for me to get into these stories than ones written by Americans, but that was kind of the point of reading them. I was pulled into a world I have no reference points for, although the language of loss and despair is a universal one.… (mere)