Ādharbād Persiska (Farsi) 2025

Azarbâd, the latest novel by Nasim Marashi, was published in 2025 (1404). The work continues the author’s longstanding engagement with human and social concerns—preoccupations that have already secured her a significant place among contemporary Iranian readers. Marashi first rose to prominence with her acclaimed and bestselling debut novel Autumn is the Last Season, which earned her the Jalal Al-e Ahmad Literary Award in 2014. Her subsequent works likewise explore a spectrum of human and social themes, rendered through an affective prose style and an observant, finely attuned narrative gaze.

In Azarbâd, Marashi tells the story of a woman who shares her name with the novel’s title—an undocumented migrant living on the outskirts of Paris, in a camp for asylum seekers. Possessing an unusually strong command of French, she serves as an intermediary between migrants and various administrative, medical, and insurance institutions. Yet this role is a heavy burden: she becomes the translator of pain, desperation, restlessness, and longing—emotions carried by people who often arrive with little more than wounds and a fragile hope. Azarbâd poses a deceptively simple yet profound question about the nature of this burden: Why must she translate pain, restlessness, longing, and despair into another language?

The central themes of the novel coalesce around migration, identity, language, and the weight of responsibility. As a translator, Azarbâd is compelled not only to transfer words but also to register and convey their emotional and psychological weight, becoming at once both victim and savior. With poetic language enriched by sensory detail and precise description, Marashi constructs a setting that is cold, visceral, and at times nightmarish—an environment in which characters constantly confront visible or invisible borders: borders of language, culture, and identity.

Marashi’s style—consistent with her earlier work—is defined by fluid, evocative prose. Through short sentences, vivid imagery, and concise dialogue, she succeeds in creating a tangible and believable world, one populated by people who carry their wounds and hopes in equal measure.

Ultimately, Azarbâd is not merely the story of a migrant woman; it is a reflection of a global condition—one in which language becomes not only a tool of communication but also a site of emotional, ethical, and political struggle. With its humane and contemplative approach, the novel stands as a compelling, memorable, and significant contribution to contemporary Persian literature.