SHORT STORIES
Eddie and the Princess (The London Magazine)
Eddie Norouzi and I both grew up and studied abroad and returned to Iran around the same time. We met when we were doing our national service. His Farsi was even worse than mine. I at least could read it in print. He couldn't read it at all. Whenever we had to pass tests, someone sat in with us to transcribe the exam answers that we gave orally. Then Eddie went on to become deputy minister of information, all because he was the princess’ lover. And you wonder why there was a revolution (read more)
Eddie and the Princess (The London Magazine)
Eddie Norouzi and I both grew up and studied abroad and returned to Iran around the same time. We met when we were doing our national service. His Farsi was even worse than mine. I at least could read it in print. He couldn't read it at all. Whenever we had to pass tests, someone sat in with us to transcribe the exam answers that we gave orally. Then Eddie went on to become deputy minister of information, all because he was the princess’ lover. And you wonder why there was a revolution (read more)
The Eyes of the Hunter (Enhanced Gravity, ed. Richard Peabody)
I know exactly when I stopped feeling like a woman, when I withdrew—or was withdrawn—from the playing field. I have now stopped looking at men as a woman looks at them who can be stirred by them and who knows they can be stirred by her (read more)
The Interview (Ararat)
Rather than a bridge, it looked like a large, oddly shaped town square at the foot of the mountains, but as one corner spanned the bed of a torrent—dry in the summer months, briefly roaring in the spring—for generations of Tehranis it was the Bridge. In summer, people drove ten, fifteen miles there to enjoy the cool mountain air and the (read more)
Lilacs (Pleiades)
Lilacs in bloom, unmistakably. If ever there was a sweeter smell, she had yet to discover it. Walking alon the Rue des Aulnes, she peeped into the tall-walled gardens through every opening, to find the tree. Where the street veered to the left, a wooden gate stood half open. In the garden beyond, she saw the glorious branches laden (read more)
The Trip to Prague (Chanteh)
First there was a sinking feeling, a sense of confusion. He thought that he had stumbled but he hadn't. Surprised, he went on walking toward his car, his vision very clear. In the early morning drizzle, the Paris suburb street, the houses and the trees lining it appeared as sharp as if a dusty pane placed between him and the world was pushed aside (read more)