Asef Soltanzadeh
Encyclopedia
Mohammad Asef Soltanzadeh (also spelled Assef) was born in Kabul
Kabul
Kabul , spelt Caubul in some classic literatures, is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. It is also the capital of the Kabul Province, located in the eastern section of Afghanistan...

, Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

 in 1964, moved to Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, then Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

 in 1985, and in 2002, to Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

. He is a writer specialising in prose and drama. He writes primarily in Persian.

"Discovered by the Iranian writer and critic Hushang Golshiri, he has published his short stories in various literary journals. When his book "We Disappear in Flight" was published in Tehran in 2000, he became famous among experts of literature in the Persian language (one of the literary languages of Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

). In Iran a second volume of his short stories is being published."

His two collections of short stories
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

, We Disappear in Flight and The Deserter won the prestigious Golshiri Prize in Iran in 2001.

In 2002, when Afghans were no longer allowed to stay in Iran, he moved to Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

.

Short stories

His most recent collections of stories, in Persian, are:
  • We Disappear in Flight, Tehran: Agah, 2000.
  • Newyear's Day Is Delightful Only in Kabul
  • Now Denmark
  • The Deserter
  • You Who Are Here, This Is Not Your Land

Anthologized in

  • Another Sea, Another Shore: Persian Stories of Migration. Ed. and trans. Shouleh Vatanabadi and Mohammad Mehdi Khorrami. Northampton, MA: Interlink Books, 2004.
  • "Sohrab's Wars: Counter Discourses of Contemporary Persian Fiction". Ed. and trans. Mohammad Mehdi Khorrami and Pari Shirazi. Costa Mesa, California, Mazda Publishers, Inc., 2008.
  • "Herfra min verden går. 23 flersprogede forfattere i Danmark". Copenhagen, Dansk PEN, 2009.
  • "Writing from Afghanistan". Ed. and trans. Anders Widmark. at the http://wordswithoutborders.org/ website.

Awards

  • Golshiri Award, 2001 (Golshiri Foundation, Iran) - "for The Best First Collection of Short Stories, chosen for its impressive and macabre themes achieved through seemingly simple and unadorned language strewn with words and expressions from the author's homeland. Soltanzadeh's book has since been translated into French
    French language
    French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

     [Assef Soltanzadeh, Perdus dans la fuite, Actes sud, Paris, 2002] and Italian [M. A. Soltanzade, Perduti nella fuga, AIEP Editore, San Marino, 2002]."
  • Danish Refugee Council Artist Award, 2003.
  • Golshiri Award, 2007 (Golshiri Foundation, Iran) - for The Deserter, Award for the Best Collection of Short Stories.
  • Nawrooz Award, 2010 (Kabul, Afghanistan) - for "The Deserter", Award for the Best Collection of Afghan Short Stories of the Decade.

External links

for further reading:
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