Elham Fallah, one of Iranian awarded novelist, has been working in the fields of novel writing, literary criticism, and journalism for over ten years. She has published two story collections, six adult novels, and three adolescent novels so far. She is a columnist in the fiction magazine Kargadan, Iran newspaper, Hamshahri Fiction, Arman, etc. She is also a virtual lecturer of story criticism base at the Fiction and Poetry Literature Foundation.
Elham Fallah is a computer engineering graduate and her first serious experience in writing fiction was a novel called Cherry-Flavored Winter which was published in 2012. The main character of this novel is a woman caught in paranoid delusions for whom there is no borderline between her real and imaginary life. A woman who in her fantasies, is in love with someone other than her husband. Fallah’s next work is a novel entitled Samar, which deals with two women of two different generations in parallel, both of whom face the same problem. Infertility and the inability to give birth from the past to the present time are among the few problems that can completely change the course of women’s lives.
An interconnected collection of stories called The Fourteenth Country is another work by the author with episodic narratives that take place in Gilan in the 1960s at a fixed location with the same characters. This collection attracted the attention of many critics. Fallah’s fourth novel is entitled Ecchymosis. The story of this novel was about the impact of the eight-year war on the lives of women who were unintentionally caught in the flames of the unwanted war. It narrated a mysterious romance during the war, which was selected in the seventh round of Parvin Etesami Literary Award and nominated for the Shahid Ghanipour Award. Her other novel All the Sea Girls is a socio-political novel that was published in the fall of 2016. In this story, as the name implies, the focus of the story is four women from four different strata. Women who happen to be on a trip and tell their own stories and concerns. Another novel by the author, Look at Me, was published in the summer of 2018. This novel describes the sufferings and concerns of women in today’s society in the face of the complex crisis of having a disabled or sick baby or a child suffering from mental and motor disorders. Elham Fallah’s latest novel is Bloodlust, which was released in March 2020. A story of the victory of love over hate and the kindling of the fire of war and doubt that arises from the heart of war over faith and belief. It is a story of fear and doubt about everything that is taught to people as sacred.
All of Fallah’s works mainly deal with the women’s issues and the men in the stories are defined in the face of women and the positions they take. Elham Fallah has also published several works in the field of adolescents fiction.
Some of her honors are:
– Ecchymosis, the novel won the 7th round of Parvin Etesami Literary Prize
– The people’s votes section at the 11th round of Jalal Al-Ahmad Prize and has been nominated for Ghanipor Award.
Some of the works:
Title: Bruise
Publisher: Cheshme Pubs. No. of Pages: 224,ISBN: 978-964-448-296-0
◙ Awarded in Mandegar Literary Prize (2015), and Jalal Al-Ahmad Literary Prize (2016)
This is a different novel in the background of war that depicts the blackness and whiteness of this disaster differently and innovatively. This novel is about the story of a young named ‘Amer’ and a girl that loved him and about a strange destiny that war that is determined for them by war. The author in the present novel presents a new experience from a narration about the war in which he merges truths and lies. The setting of the story starts with wartime and continues until now. This novel is the story of a family that during these times encounters many events and incidents that have strong influences on their life and identity. The further the story proceeds, the readers face more incidents and accidents that are sometimes very moving. When the curtains fall down the spirits of the characters and their real face will be clear and the readers will find out who tells the right and who the liar is. In this novel war is the setting of the story. War does not enter the people’s life and influences them on their volitions. It enters people’s lives and changes them unintentionally and sometimes for reasons except defending homes and the land of one’s country. The protagonist was not in the habit of participating in a war, he was after something else for taking part in the war, and it finally determines his fate.
Title: Bloodlust
Publisher: Quqnoos Pubs. No. of Pages: 231, ISBN: 978-6002784919
Bloodlust is the story of Ahmad and his fears, confusion, and doubts. The story of waiting and arriving when it is too late. The story of doubt and suspicion of all beliefs and principles of cultural and customary order. Bloodlust tells the story of brothers from Iran and brothers from Iraq. The story of fratricide over belief. The legitimacy of opening fire on a person with the same bloodline and same religion. Bloodlust is the story of love’s victory over war. Wars end and the ending point of any war is just love. A woman from one side of the frontline and a man from the other side must unite, hybrid boys must set foot on the ground, grow up, become men, and wars would not end other than in this way. When, in exchange for the shed blood, fresh blood boils in the veins of an impartial newly born. Bloodlust is the story of Betty, Leyla, Monica, and the rest of the women who control the fate of wars.
Look at Me
Publisher: Quqnoos Pubs. No. of Pages: 285, ISBN: 978-6002784100
The growing prevalence of autism among children is a concern for many parents today, particularly in a society where there are no reasonable facilities for these children. This book only addresses some of the autism problems and their impact on human relationships.
Negah, the son of Ibrahim and Ghazzaleh, is autistic. Ghazzaleh is a modern woman and is not willing to spend all her time and energy on a child whose world knows nothing. Ibrahim, on the other hand, basically denies their daughter’s autism. The relationship between Ibrahim and Ghazzaleh deteriorates as a result of facing their child’s problem. The problems that each of them has in caring for their child, the approach of society, families, and others to the problem of autism is the main theme of the novel Look at Me.
All the Sea Girls
Publisher: Quqnoos Pubs. No. of Pages: 352, ISBN: 978-6002782687
The present novel narrates the life of a woman who inadvertently got into the movements of political parties of the revolution years and this event overshadowed her entire destiny and even her emotional life. The woman is finally identified and taken care of by a group of three friends who go to a northern city for fun. The novel, more than anything else, expresses hesitation in choosing the way, companion, and destination in the path of life. What fate befell this woman in the end, is it her will and desire that was most impactful in creating her complicated situation or the social and political conditions of the early years of the revolution? At the end of the story, what is clear is that what a person gets and steps in that direction towards the future, depends solely on his or her own choice.
Cherry-Flavored Winter
Publisher: Quqnoos Pubs. No. of Pages: 288, ISBN: 9789643119638
A woman who is not on the same page with her husband inevitably fantasizes:
“I don’t know how many days have passed since that last winter, the same winter when you took my cold hand for the first and the last time so that the warmth of your hand, which was a different kind of thing, something like a miracle and different from any other heat, could penetrate my hand to my whole body. Moreover, it is winter again. It is cold again and so are my hands, and how good this cold is. I do not know if I should believe that you are finally coming this winter or not. I want to believe. So that the days left until your arrival pass sooner, these useless hollow days of mine, all of which pass skewed and crooked. You know well what I’m saying. You know how bad my days are and even our nights.”
Cherry-Flavored Winter is the story of a woman’s worries who seeks her missed love in her fantasies to depict his presence in her loneliness.
No One Is Home
(15 Stories by Women in Today’s Iran)
Author: Group of Authors
Editor and Compiler: Elham Fallah
Publisher: Kooche Pubs.
Year of Publication: 2019/First edition
No. of Pages:82
Size:21×14/Paperback
ISBN:978960008753797
◙ Sample English text is available.
About the Book:
The book contains fourteen short stories about topics relating to the focus of women in Iranian society. Women who – in the struggle between tradition and religion, and the rampant modernization of society – have been plagued by multiple identities and complex problems to accept their multiple roles. The book perfectly mirrors all the diverse strata of Iranian women and the dilemmas and difficulties they countenance. Each story opens a new window to the world of an Iranian woman in today’s Iran. The story of a woman whose wooden leg has been eaten by termites; a woman who is in conflict with the female myth of Penelope, a woman who had sought an occasion to abandon a man inches away from death, a man who had endured her during his lifetime; a woman who is addicted to play a mental game of killing other women in the subway station; a woman who has killed her husband’s sister and the murder has forced her to wandering and homelessness; a woman who uses magic and sorcery to take revenge of her loneliness of women who are loved by their men; a woman who at the zero point border, to escape ethnic and family prejudices, is trapped in a pit as prey to wolves; a woman who, after years of abstaining from relying on her gender aspects for career advancements, is back to square one and regrets that; a woman who sees other women in her life as monsters that have nibbled on her life; a woman who rescues a man from destruction with her gold and possessions; a woman who daydreams about getting away from her life and save herself from the boredom of being a housewife, while still dependent on her spouse and children; a woman who considers her man’s debauchery and sexual promiscuity a malignant tumor that must be tolerated; a woman who is no longer alive, but is still watching her mother and father and identifies with their sick relationship and feels its impact on herself; the story of a woman who knowingly establishes a relationship with a married woman to cure her loneliness.
The present book is a collection of 14 short stories written with different styles by 14 most prominent and most honorable contemporary Iranian female authors. The editor of the collection presents a brief introduction of the author and her story at the preface to each story.
Book Expert:
The variety of authors in this collection, whether in terms of precedence and age or variety and diversity of life experiences and writing skills, has created a colorful collection of all kinds of tastes, outlooks, and writing styles. Ranging from the story in which the heroine has the power of decision-making and salvation through her independence and financial base, to a woman who is involved in the mental game of homicide and killing members of her own gender. A woman from the borderline caught up in double standards and taboos of ethnicity, and a woman who believes that sometimes the wrong means, may lead to the right ends.