A Novel

Shamar's migration (Departure of Shamar)

The young Kurdish man, lost and bewildered, seems to have lived and not lived for thousands of years, having migrated or been forced to migrate from the pages of Yarsan and a multitude of memories and longings to a Tehran that obscures yesterday, today, and tomorrow. The story of Shamar's migration is the labyrinthine narrative of a man who is both the storyteller and the witness to the stories of others, carrying fragments from eras and centuries, as well as from the very history of the decades we have endured and are enduring, yet we do not know if we will continue to endure it or not. Shamar, who knows that his stars and those of his people have become unfortunate in the absence of a beloved, wishes to draw metaphors from among the papers, documents, letters, memories, sayings, anecdotes, and his daily work report that would restore the lost meanings to himself and his people. "Departure of Shamar" the third novel by Farhaad Heydari Guraan, transforms the presence of a man who has been forced to leave his homeland for work in the capital and has become involved in a drug rehabilitation camp into a historical and imaginary presence that one can ride on the horse of his imagination to experience love and the denial of love, with hope, love, and certainty; the very things that this history has always sought to strip away from him and his people.