TEHRAN – Croatian adventurer Ivan Dogic’s pictorial book on Iranian children has recently been published in Zagreb, Croatia.

Dogic visited Iran in 2016 for the first time. On his second trip to the country, he met Iranian tour guide Fariba Fadai, whom he married, and together they now live in the central Iranian city of Isfahan. 

“Children of Iran” (“Djeca Irana”) has been published by Kreativna Mreza in collaboration with the Croatian-Iranian Society – Irandustan, a non-governmental society founded in 2016 to promote all-round cooperation between Croatian and Iranian people.

The graphic and artistic design of the book is done by Aleksandra Nina Knezevic, who worked on the cover art for the Bosnian edition of the Harry Potter series.

“Children of Iran” is one of the books from the Kreativna book series “Window to the World”. It also features studies about children of Egypt, Central Asia and several other regions.

The book was introduced at Irandustan on June 23 during a meeting attended by Dogic and a number of Croatian and Iranian scholars, including Azra Abadzic Navaey, Fariba Fadai and Ana Djokic. The meeting was organized with contributions from the Croatian Ministry of Culture and Media.

Dogic, who visited Iran in 2018, also introduced “Iran in the Present” (“Iran u Prezentu”), his first book on Iran, and “Children of Iran” during a session at the Popovaca Library and Reading Room in Zagreb on June 28.

However, his speech was focused on “Iran in the Present”, which he wrote in the village of Fariba’s grandfather during the first lockdown.

In this book, Dogic writes about his own experience of life in Iran, cultural and mental differences, rich and interesting history and geography, and life under sanctions and restrictive rules.

The audience was most interested in how Fariba’s family accepted him and how he adapted to the food and mentality.

In his response, Dogic said that Fariba’s family accepted him wonderfully and that he had no pressure from tradition. 

Regarding the food, he pointed out that it is Mediterranean and light, and that it was not difficult for him to get used to it.

In the end, he noted that life in Iran is different enough from that in Croatia that every day is very interesting, and that his goal is for other visitors to the country to see this as well.

“Iran in the Present” was awarded the Nagrada Dijana Klaric at the 2021 Croatian Travel Festival. The award is given to the year’s best travel book at the festival, which is organized annually in Sibenik, a city on the Adriatic coast of Croatia.

Photo: A poster for Croatian adventurer Ivan Dogic’s pictorial book “Children of Iran” (“Djeca Irana”).

MMS/YAW