Forthcoming by Asemana Books (October 2026)

Rain-Soaked Persian New Year

Short Stories by

Zohreh Hakimi

Translated from the Persian by

M. R. Ghanoonparvar

ISBN: 978-1-997503-44-6

Rain-Soaked Persian New Year brings together fifteen finely crafted stories by acclaimed Iranian writer Zohreh Hakimi, whose fiction explores the quiet complexities of memory, migration, belonging, and human resilience. Born in Iran in 1955 and writing fiction since the 1990s, Hakimi has published two short-story collections and two novels, earning recognition including the Parvin Etesami Literary Award and distinction from the Houshang Golshiri Foundation. In this collection, translated into English by renowned scholar and translator M. R. Ghanoonparvar, readers encounter a rich gallery of characters navigating the emotional terrain of everyday life across continents, generations, and cultural worlds.

Moving seamlessly between Iran and the immigrant experience in North America, these stories illuminate moments of longing, loss, humor, and hope with remarkable sensitivity. Whether set in the streets of Tehran, the landscapes of the American Southwest, or the memories carried across borders, Hakimi’s narratives reveal the enduring ties between people and places. Thoughtful, lyrical, and deeply humane, Rain-Soaked Persian New Year offers English-language readers an engaging introduction to one of contemporary Persian literature’s distinctive voices.

Zohreh Hakimi was born in Iran in 1955. She began writing fiction in the mid-1990s and has since published two short story collections and two novels. Her works have won the Parvin Etesami Literary Award, and she was the runner-up (second-place recipient) of the Hooshang Golshiri Foundation Award.

M. R. Ghanoonparvar is Professor Emeritus of Persian and Comparative Literature at The University of Texas at Austin. Professor Ghanoonparvar has also taught at the University of Isfahan, the University of Virginia, and the University of Arizona, and was a Rockefeller Fellow at the University of Michigan. He was the recipient of the Lois Roth Prize for Literary Translation in 2008 and the recipient of MLA-Roth Translation Award in 2025. He is the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Teachers of Persian (2021) and also the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from Encyclopædia Iranica (2009) for his contributions to presenting Persian culinary arts to the non-Iranian public. He has published widely on Persian literature and culture in both English and Persian and is the author of: Prophets of Doom: Literature as a Socio-Political Phenomenon in Modern Iran (1984), In a Persian Mirror: Images of the West and Westerners in Iranian Fiction (1993), Translating the Garden (2001), Reading Chubak (2005), Persian Cuisine: Traditional, Regional and Modern Foods (2006), Iranian Film and Persian Fiction (2016), Dining at the Safavid Court (2016), From Prophets of Doom to Chroniclers of Gloom (2021), and Iranian Cities in Persian Fiction (2022). His translations include Jalal Al-e Ahmad’s By the Pen, Sadeq Chubak’s The Patient Stone, Simin Daneshvar’s Savushun, Ahmad Kasravi’s On Islam and Shi’ism, Sadeq Hedayat’s The Myth of Creation, Nima Yushij’s The Neighbor Says: Letters of Nima Yushij and the Philosophy of Modern Persian Poetry, Davud Ghaffarzadegan’s Fortune Told in Blood, Mohammad Reza Bayrami’s The Tales of Sabalan and Eagles of Hill 60, and Bahram Beyza’i’s Memoirs of the Actor in a Supporting Role. His edited volumes include Iranian Drama: An Anthology, In Transition: Essays on Culture and Identity in Middle Eastern Societies, Gholamhoseyn Sa’edi’s Othello in Wonderland and Mirror-Polishing Storytellers, and Moniro Ravanipour’s Satan Stones, and Kanizu. His most recent translations include Shahrokh Meskub’s In the Alley of the Friend and Leaving, Staying, Returning, Hushang Golshiri’s Book of Jinn, Moniro Ravanipour’s The Drowned and These Crazy Nights, Hamid Shokat’s Flight into Darkness: A Political Biography of Shapour Bakhtiar and Caught in the Crossfire: A Political Biography of Qavamossaltaneh, Ghazaleh Alizadeh’s The Nights of Tehran, The House of the Edrisis, and Two Views and Trial, Ruhangiz Sharifian’s The Last Dream and Doran, Shahrnush Parsipur’s Blue Logos, Hossein Atashparvar’s From the Moon to the Well, Ahmad Kasravi’s Superstitions, Reza Julai’s Jujube Blossoms, Sadeq Hedayat’s Neyrangestan, and Zohre Hakimi’s Rain-Soaked Persian New Year. His most recent book is Disease, Dying, Death, and Trauma in Persian Stories.