Over the past decades, I have published three novels in Persian in Iran. Together, they took seven and a half years to be published, but this timeline is deceptive. While the manuscripts came in succession, their publication came in disorder. I wrote my first novel and moved on to the second before the first ever reached print. Then, I set the second aside and began the third, again without seeing the second’s cover. I was always writing forward, without any tangible confirmation that I was, indeed, a writer. There was no recognition, no reward; there was only the act of writing, and the long, ghostly wait, wait, wait.

These three novels reflect my deep passion for words and metaphors, and my commitment to exploring the complexities of human experience. Although I am an award-winning novelist whose works have been nominated and recognized as the best novels of the year for  Iranian literary prizes, that recognition always came years after the books were written. t leaves me with a deeper question: What is the value of the Other’s recognition when it arrives only as a ghost, certifying a desire that has already moved on?“