Cherāgh-hā-yi ʿEmārat Dāstān Persiska (Farsi) 2025

The selected stories from the “Fourth Independent Literary Važe Award” were planned to be published as a book. However, preparing any book has its own rituals; it is not merely a matter of compiling a few stories and calling it a book. Therefore, a concluding section in the form of an article was added, explaining three key aspects that form the foundation of a story: from theme to plot, from prose to language, and from form to content.

Additionally, three female writers were invited to contribute essays on three topics commonly shared among women writers, which are prevalent in this collection. Regarding the “quantitative presence of women writers,” Ms. Azardokht Bahrami wrote a note; on the “qualitative aspects of women’s stories,” Ms. Mahsa Mohebbali contributed an essay; and on the “breadth of the theme of death in women’s stories,” Ms. Behnaz Alipour Gaskari wrote an article discussing the concern with death in the confessions of one contemporary writer, representing many.

In reality, it is both shocking and lamentable that death has become the main theme of stories by young people who are, on average, at the beginning of their fourth decade of life. Dying differs from killing. We have moved from premature death to the killing of youth. What a cruel nature and what a harsh age this is!