In July 2018, Jamshid Khanian, an Iranian novelist and playwright, addressed the biennial festival of “White Crows”, organized by the International Library of Children and Adolescents in Munich, Germany. He was among the 12 international writers of children and adolescents’ stories invited to the 2018 literary festival of world renown. In addition to Khanian’s lecture, parts of his famous novel “Jonah’s Words of Love in the Whale’s Belly” were recited in German, followed by discussion by the audience about the fictitious characters of “Jonah” and “Sara” in the novel.
In a subsequent interview with Roya Maktabi, Khanian talked about his reasons and motivations for writing stories for children and adolescents, the role of climate and geography in his narrative, and also the role of human integrity in the depiction of characters in his novels.
Khanian, born in the southern city of Abadan in 1961, started writing stories in the 1980s. After a period of writing for adults, he crossed over to the field of children and adolescents’ literature. “Always the Same Time, the Same Game”, “Strange Distances”, “The Beautiful Heart of Baboor”, “Clipped Wings”, “Deep Dive”, “Seventh Floor, West” and “A Mouth Filled with Crows” are among his other major works.
