The English version of the Persian novel ‘A Sweet Jam’ written by Houshang Moradi-Kermani and translated by American Iranologist and researcher from UCLA University, Caroline Croskery, is set for global release in September.
Published by Candle and Fog Publishing House, the book has previously been translated into Turkish and reprinted several times in Turkey. The Iranian publisher is also its global distributor, ISNA reported.
The book narrates the story of a twelve-year-old boy, Jalal, who simply wants to eat his morning breakfast with the jam he has purchased with his own money. There’s only one problem: no matter how hard he tries, he cannot open the jar - and neither can his mother, the neighbors, his classmates, his teachers, the principal, the corner grocer, the factory distributor or the police officer.
It is a humorous lesson on how one seemingly small event impacts each successive event, how small things become blown out of proportion, and how one should never count one’s chickens before they hatch.
Persian to English translator, Croskery was born in the United States and moved to Iran at the age of 21. She lived in Iran for 13 years before returning to the US, and began a ten-year career as a Farsi interpreter in Los Angeles. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Los Angeles in Iranian Studies. For many years she was active in the fields of language teaching, translation and interpretation, and voiceover acting.
She has also translated Moradi-Kermani’s, ‘The Water Urn’, presented at Frankfurt Book Fair (FBF) last year, and four other Persian works by authors Seyyed Mehdi Shojai, Erfan Nazarahari and Saeed Ramezani, all published by the same publisher.
‘A Sweet Jam’ will participate in the 67th FBF, the world’s largest trade fair for books, slated for October 14-18 in Frankfurt, Germany.
Moradi-Kermani, 71, is an eminent Iranian writer best known for children’s and young-adult fiction. He was a finalist in the 2014 biennial international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest recognition available to creators of children’s books.
