Iran`s Anvari war novel wins lucrative Iranian award

TEHRAN,Nov. 20 (MNA) -- A long novel narrating the events of the two major wars Iran experienced since 1941 won the top prize from the Jalal Al-e Ahmad Literary Awards, which is Iran’s most prestigious and lucrative literary award. The 5-volume novel “The War Road” written by Mansur Anvari covers the events since Iran’s occupation by the Allies in 1941 until the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988. The award presentation ceremony will take place on Wednesday at the Institute of Cultural and Art Studies affiliated to the Academic Center for Education, Culture, and Research (ACECR). The top winner receives 110 Bahar Azadi gold coins worth over $66,000. Published by Sureh-Mehr Publications, the story begins with the Allied invasion of Iran and covers different events including the events leading to the Islamic Revolution in 1978 as well as the eight year Iran-Iraq war. “Iran has been through two major wars. I was born in Neyshabur in 1956 just ten years after the end of the war. There were many relatives and neighbors living around me who still remembered the war and I used their memoirs to form my story,” the author had once told the Persian daily Khorasan in an interview published almost two months ago. “The main character of the story is still alive and he is living abroad. He once came to Iran and was a great help for me and gave me good information on the events of those days. “I began writing the book about seven years ago and continued my research on the events at the same time,” the author said, adding that two more volumes have also been completed and are ready to be published. The series had already received the 8th Golden Pen Awards in the fiction section for the artistic construction of fiction, narrative coherence in time and place, and invaluable thematic research. “Shaking Hands with the Ghosts” and “Love Sacrificing” are Anvari’s other noteworthy credits.