A Nearby Country Called Love

Praise for A Nearby Country Called Love

A complex portrait of interpersonal relationships in contemporary Iran. . .Compelling.
— The New York Times Book Review
Brutally Poignant
— The Washington Post
Abdoh offers a moving and nuanced study of gender and sexuality in contemporary Iran. . . .It’s an artful rendering of hope amid despair.
— Publisher’s Weekly
Remarkable . . .Recounted with a sort of bewilderment and tenderness that suggest the modern world has made unfathomable misfits of us all.
— Foreign Affairs
Once I glanced at this book I couldn’t stop reading, staying up late to gallop through this harrowing, beautiful, surprising novel in one evening. A profound depiction of gender roles as prisons, and of who escapes these prisons at what cost.
— Rebecca Solnit, author of Orwell's Roses
Salar Abdoh’s novel takes us to the perilous borderland between men and women. His generous story suggests that those of us who live in these worlds—Iranians, Americans, men, women—might yet find solace, and peace, and love.
— Jennifer Finney Boylan, author of She’s Not There, and (with Jodi Picoult) Mad Honey.
Salar Abdoh knows well the perceived abyss that exists between the lands of East and West, one as wide as the distance between strangers and brothers, hatred and tenderness. And yet, from that place, he has given us a modern classic.
— Andrew Krivák, author of Like the Appearance of Horses, and The Bear
Reading this book was almost like encountering a magic trick, but without any of the sleight of hand of a stage show. Abdoh is at once honest and encouraging in this portrait of contemporary relationships, conjuring a story that shows us how to build chosen families and honor blood ties despite and through the violence of modern life.
— Emily Nemens, author of The Cactus League

Shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing
Selected as a Buzz Books of 2023 by Publishers Marketplace

A Nearby Country Called Love is both a captivating window into contemporary Iran and a portrait of the parallel fates of a man and his country—a man who acknowledges the sullen and rumbling baggage of history but then chooses to step past its violent inheritance.

About Salar

Salar Abdoh Author Photograph

Salar Abdoh is an author and writer. His latest novel is A Nearby Country Called Love (Viking Penguin, 2023). His book, Out of Mesopotamia (Akashic, 2020), has been hailed as “One of a handful of great modern war novels,” and was a NYTimes Editors’ Choice, and also selected as a Best Book of the year across several platforms, including Publishers Weekly. He is also the author of Tehran At Twilight, Opium, and The Poet Game, and editor and translator of the celebrated crime collection, Tehran Noir.

Mostly dividing his time between New York City and Tehran, Iran, Salar regularly publishes personal essays and short stories, plus numerous translations of other authors that appear in journals across the world.

A professor at the City University of New York’s City College campus in Harlem, he conducts workshops in the English Department’s MFA program and also directs undergraduate creative writing. 


More Books by Salar

Out Of Mesopotamia Book Cover
Abdoh’s novel is as much a meditation on time and memory as it is a book about war. The novel arrives at wisdom by shining a brilliant, feverish light on the nature of not only modern war but all war, and even of life itself.
— New York Times Editors’ Choice
A searing, poetic, and morally authentic account of contemporary conflict. Abdoh eloquently depicts the absurdity of war. A devastating profound catch-22 of modern conflict.
— Booklist
A brutally realistic look at war and love and fear and everything else that humans do. I am stunned at how good this book is.
— Sebastian Junger (author of Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging)
The book captures the tragedy, comedy, and sheer absurdity of modern war like nothing else I have read.
— Phil Klay (author of Redeployment)
One of a handful of great modern war novels.
— Chris Hedges (author of War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning)

Out of Mesopotamia

Salar Abdoh

Tehran At Twilight Book Cover
A swift, hardboiled novel. Shadowy zealots exist everywhere, whether in conference rooms or interrogation rooms or – most often – in rooms that can serve as both.
— New York Times Book Review
Abdoh paints a gripping portrait of a nation awash in violence and crippled by corruption. Captivating.
— Publishers Weekly
A remarkable meditation on violence, and on all the ways one bears witness to pain. Abdoh depicts a pulsating portrait of Tehran. A smart, eloquent novel.
— Dalia Sofer (author of Man of My Time)
A smart political thriller for our times.
— Leila Lalami (author of The Other Americans)

Tehran At Twilight

Salar Abdoh

Tehran Noir Book Cover
A tour de force not to be missed.
— World Literature Today
This entry in Akashic’s noir series takes the gritty sensibilities born out of American film and fiction to Tehran.
— Publishers Weekly
Tehran Noir is not only a solid noir collection, but an illuminated look into day-to-day life in the Middle East.
— San Francisco Chronicle
A collection such as this is able to bring Iran to life for the foreign reader in a way other fiction and nonfiction cannot. Superb.
— PopMatters

Tehran Noir

Salar Abdoh

The Poet Game Book Cover
Ornate and ambitious. A complex, politically sophisticated story.
— New York Times Book Review
An entertaining and heart-quickening debut.
— Publishers Weekly
The Poet Game offers its own taut, moody spin to the spy-genre conventions. Abdoh delivers a surprising, smart thriller.
— San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

The Poet Game

Salar Abdoh

Opium Book Cover
Critics pronounced the spy novel dead after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Salar Abdoh shows that is alive and well, and living in Manhattan.
— Eoin McNamee (author of Resurrection Man)

Opium

Salar Abdoh

Upcoming Events

Check here for upcoming events, lectures, book tour dates, and other engagements by author Salar Abdoh.

Date: Tues, Nov 7, 2023

City: Brooklyn, NY

Venue: Greenlight Bookstore, 686 Fulton St, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Time: 7:30pm

More Info: here

Date: Tues, Nov 28, 2023

City: Pittsburgh, PA

Venue: City of Asylum, 40 W North Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15212

Time: 7:00pm

More Info: here

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Contact

PUBLICITY:

Julia Rickard

Publicist, Viking/ Penguin
1745 Broadway, 21st Floor, New York, NY 10019
jrickard@penguinrandomhouse.com

Raven Ross

Marketing Associate, Viking Penguin Books
1745 Broadway, 21st Floor, New York, NY 10019
raross@penguinrandomhouse.com

LITERARY AGENT:

Jessica Papin

Vice President, Literary Agent

Dystel Goderich & Bourret LLC

1 Union Square West, Suite 904

New York, NY 10003

WhatsApp (908) 693-4646

Voicemail: 212 627-9100 (extension 709)

twitter: @jkpapin

www.dystel.com

TO GET IN TOUCH WITH SALAR: