A long-awaited book – a collection of the contemporary Iranian prose entitled “The light of love and faith” – has seen the light of day. It includes short stories by Reza Amirkhani (“The Armenian Naser”) and Seyed Mehdi Shojai (“Santa Maria”), novels by Sara Erfani (“Messiah’s smile”) and Nader Ebrahimi (“Back in the city I loved”). 

Each piece of this collection is unique in its plot, form and style. You will read a sad story about an Armenian called Naser, whose nickname predetermined his destiny; several stories about love and faith, where reality is intertwined with make-believe; an extremely moving novel about one’s way to God, where the main characters, Negar from Iran and Nicholas from America are brought closer by e-mail correspondence;   a touching novel about coming back home after a long exile. We can see the bright images of the everyday life in the modern Iran, which are strikingly realistic and accurate. Together with the main character we are trying to overcome everything – fears, distress, misfortunes and other hardships, striving for the good, truth and justice with our hearts and souls. By naturally complementing each other, these stories reflect the environment and the reality of the Iranian society in its entirety. They make you ponder over the eternal fight between good and evil, morality and vices, faith and disbelief, love and hatred, freedom and predestination.

“The light of love and faith” collection was prepared for publication by Veche and Sadra publishing houses with the support of the Islamic Culture Research Foundation.