Books

Butterflies Die in Russia

Esmaiel Yourdshahian

The Butcher's Nightmares

Siavash Najafpour

A dark psychological novel of violence, fear and surveillance, where a butcher shop, a mysterious Red Room and the presence of an unseen Organization gradually pull the story into an increasingly disturbing world. Recurring images of meat, blood, a wounded deer and the forest blur the boundary between reality, memory and nightmare.

When Moonlight Rots…

Mehdi Ghorban-Nia

A dark and deeply personal poetry collection moving through solitude, memory, longing and inner decay. Strange, discordant and intimate, the poems inhabit a world where darkness becomes a language of its own and moonlight itself begins to rot.

Adrift

Ali Safari

Adrift is a collection of five plays about people who find themselves pushed into unfamiliar paths by war, displacement, memory, desire, and circumstance. Across *Eiffel*, *Saltiness*, *The Women of Auschwitz*, *The Square*, and *The Fountain*, Ali Safari follows characters suspended between departure and arrival, certainty and loss, intimacy and history. Rather than offering easy resolutions, the plays explore the forms of maturity, fracture, and survival that emerge when a destination remains unclear. Moving between personal experience and wider social realities, *Adrift* examines human suffering not as an abstraction, but as something carried into relationships, memory, identity, and the everyday struggle to continue.

A Lament for Lucy Westenra or The Rise of the Red Moon

Vidadgar

Lucy Westenra is dying. What waits for her in the dark may be worse than death. Nightmares, a mysterious loss of blood, and an unrelenting thirst are draining Lucy’s strength. Dr. John Seward turns to Abraham Van Helsing for help, while her fiancé, Arthur Holmwood, clings to the future they planned together. But every brief recovery gives way to another crisis. Inside the asylum, Renfield speaks of an approaching master and the rise of a red moon. As medical explanations unravel, those fighting to save Lucy must confront a possibility they can scarcely bring themselves to believe—and a power that offers eternal life without revealing its price. A Lament for Lucy Westenra or The Rise of the Red Moon, by Vidadgar, is a Gothic stage play in two acts that reimagines familiar characters from Dracula through love, grief, and supernatural terror. Blending vampire horror with philosophical confrontation, it explores the limits of reason, the fear of death, and the dangerous allure of immortality. How much of our humanity would we surrender to survive?

Where I Was Born: Dr. Joseph Plumb Cochran

Esmaiel Yourdshahian

After studying medicine in America, Dr. Joseph Plumb Cochran returns to Urmia with his wife, Catherine, determined to build a life of service. In nineteenth-century Persia, he devotes himself to establishing a hospital, training doctors, and treating people across boundaries of language, faith, and social standing. Disease and political unrest bring demands that reach far beyond his medical work. As Joseph becomes part of the community’s hopes and struggles, personal loss begins to reshape the family life he cherishes. Beside him, Catherine searches for her own sense of belonging in a land far from the America she knows. Their shared life unfolds into a deeply human story of compassion, sacrifice, and the enduring ties between people and the places they call home. Rooted in the life of Dr. Joseph Plumb Cochran, Where I Was Born is a lyrical historical novel by Iranian poet and writer Esmaiel Yourdshahian. Spanning America and Iran, it brings together an intimate family story and a portrait of a society in upheaval, exploring love, grief, faith, and the search for belonging.

Beautiful People: A Play in Three Acts

Ebrahim Zahedi

Moscow, 1930. Trapped inside the Maly Theatre during martial law, an aspiring actress enters a dangerous game of stories, suspicion and unexpected tenderness.