TEHRAN – “Teahouse Painting”, the memoirs of Kazem Darabi, an Iranian suspect in the 1992 Mykonos Restaurant assassinations case in Berlin, has won the Jalal Al-e Ahmad Literary Award during the 12th edition of Iran’s most lucrative literary prize.

In the book, Darabi explains how he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1997 for having a hand in gunning down four members of the Kurdish opposition in the Mykonos Restaurant in the German capital in 1992 and his life during 15 years in captivity in Germany.

“Teahouse Painting” published in early 2019 received the honor in the documentation category.

“Trainspotter”, Ehsan Noruzi’s studies on the history of railroads in Iran, won an honorable mention in this section.

Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Seyyed Abbas Salehi also attended the awards ceremony held at the National Library and Archives of Iran on Saturday evening.

“Iranian culture and civilization both historically and geographically have many subjects to study, however, there is a wide gap between what has been carried out and what must be done,” Salehi said in his short speech.  

“The subjects are waiting for you to be changed into books,” he said, addressing the scholars attending the gala.

No winner was announced by the jury in the novel section. However, “The Shamelessness Situation” by Hamed Jalali, about a young man during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, and Mohammadreza Marzuqi’s “Turning on the One-Way Street”, about a hero who intends to solve a puzzle that even its designers cannot decipher, won honorable mentions in this category.

The short story section also had no winner. “We Were Traveling Through the Heyran Pass” by Hossein Lalbazri received an honorable mention.

“Domestication of Magic Realism in Iran” by Mohammad and Mohsen Hanif and “Theory and Literary Criticism” by Hossein Payandeh shared the award in the literary criticism section.

“About Eternality and Mortality” by Ahmad Shakeri won an honorable mention in this category.

Photo: Kazem Darabi (R) receives the award in the documentation category for his memoirs “Teahouse Painting” from Culture Minister Abbas Salehi (L) during the 12th Jalal Al-e Ahmad Literary Awards in Tehran on December 14, 2019. (ISNA/Erfan Khoshkhu)
     
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