Alireza Iranmehr

Alireza Iranmehr is a writer and essayist, who has received numerous honors and awards for his fiction. His first fictional work, Berim khoshgozaroni  [Let’s Go Revel] (Roshangaran Publishing, 2005) was followed by Safar ba gerdbad [Traveling with Tornado] (Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, 2006), re-reading of the poems by the 16th-century Iranian poet Saib Tabrizi. Iranmehr’s short story collection, The Pink Cloud (Candle and Fog, 2013), was translated from Persian into English by Sara Khalili. His essays and book reviews appear regularly in Iranian literary magazines and journals. Iranmehr has also written screenplays for films, including Raz [Secret] (2007), Delkhoon [Heartbreak] (2009) and Azadrah [Freeway] (2011). He is a contributor to Stories from the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction, edited by Jordan Elgrably (City Lights Books, 2024).

Salar Abdoh is an Iranian novelist, essayist and translator, who divides his time between New York and Tehran. He is the author of the novels Poet Game (2000), Opium (2004), Tehran at Twilight (2014), and Out of Mesopotamia (2020) and the editor of the short story collection Tehran Noir (2014). His latest novel, A Nearby Country Called Love, published last year by Viking, was described by the New York Times as “a complex portrait of interpersonal relationships in contemporary Iran.” Salar Abdoh also teaches in the graduate program in Creative Writing at the City College of New York at the City University of New York.