Writer Qeysari’s Book to Be Unveiled in Paris

A collection of short stories ‘Don’t Change Your Name Anymore,’ (in Persian: ‘Digar Esmat ra Avaz Nakon’) by writer Majid Qeysari, 50, known for his war stories, has been translated into French and will be unveiled at the Paris Book Fair.

Iran’s pavilion at the international event in Paris slated for March 24-27, will unveil the French edition translated by Roya Veyseh from the University of Limoges, a public research university, Mehr News Agency reported.

The French work is titled ‘Ne Change plus Ton Nom.’ It is a joint publication by Candle and Fog, a publishing house in Tehran and London, in collaboration with Editions La Volva, a media company based in Besancon, France.

The original Persian edition was published in 2009 by Tehran-based Cheshmeh Publications. It has a number of stories set during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war narrated by an Iraqi soldier “in poor Persian, mixed with Arabic.” This made the book a challenging work for translation. The final edition came out after two revisions.

The stories are based on 54 letters exchanged between an Iraqi colonel and an Iranian soldier two years after the devastating war ended.

The letters show a rapport between the two men. They have never met each other since they both were assigned to guard the borders.

The Iraqi officer is looking forward to hearing from a mother and her daughter whose lives he had saved during the occupation of Khorramshar in Khuzestan Province by Iraqi troops in September 1980. The city remained in Iraqi hands until May 1982, when the Iranian army launched Operation Beit-ul-Moqaddas to recapture the province.

The Iraqi officer has no clues about their fate and asks the Iranian soldier to help him find them.

With the few clues he has, the Iranian soldier finds the mother and daughter, who narrate the rest of the story. Is the Iraqi officer their savior or the slayer of the man of the house, is the question.