Hell of My Own Choosing

This book is a selection from more than forty years of literary activities by Esmail Zarai; storytelling with a new perspective that takes its characters from everyday people, who, although mostly simple and unpretentious, are very thoughtful and deep. Zarai touches on the wounds of society and presents them in a way that forces the reader to pause, reflect, and think. The images he sets before his audience are sometimes harsh, bitter, and dark. Suffering and oblivion are the inevitable fate of most characters in his stories. On the other hand, sometimes he uses simplicity filled with delicate and poetic emotions to beautifully show the beauty around him and his surroundings, such as in the story “The Window and the Alley,” which can confidently be said to be the peak of his artistic and literary creativity. To familiarize with the selections of this very brief collection, I will briefly mention some: 1. Hell of My Own Choosing: Winner of the Sadegh Hedayat Trophy in the thirteenth Sadegh Hedayat Literary Award. In this story, Esmail Zarai, with a philosophical, critical, and bitterly humorous outlook, addresses the relationships, moods, and behaviors of writers, publishers, censors, and various segments of society, analyzing and interpreting their social interactions. It also reflects on the negative effects of phenomena such as censorship and self-censorship.