Salar Abdoh

Salar Abdoh is an Iranian American writer and teacher of creative writing at The City College of New York.

Biography

Salar Abdoh was born in Iran and spent two years of his early childhood in England. When Abdoh was fourteen his family was forced to flee Iran and arrived in the U.S. His father died shortly after the family’s arrival in the States, leaving his children homeless in Los Angeles. After traveling the country, Abdoh eventually earned an undergraduate degree from U.C. Berkeley and received a Master’s from The City College of New York.

Works

Abdoh’s first novel, The Poet Game, focuses on a young agent sent by a top-secret Iranian government agency to infiltrate a group of Islamic extremists in New York. Though the book was published in 1999, it received greater attention following the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. His second novel, Opium (2004) tells the story of a young American who used to work as a drug-runner along the Afghan/Iran border, living in New York and trying to keep a low profile when his past suddenly catches up with him. Abdoh has published short stories and essays in numerous journals; in 2010 he edited Callaloo Journal's issue of Middle East and North Africa writers. For his prose he won the New York Foundation for the Arts award in 2008 and the National Endowment for the Arts award in 2010.

Abdoh also co-wrote the play Quotations from a Ruined City with his older brother, Reza Abdoh. It was first produced in 1994.

External links

• Faber & Faber author page
• Interview
• Excerpt from The Poet Game
• Essay on September 11
• Three part series of articles on Iran:
  • Moving Violations
  • Vanishing Point
  • Irrational Waiting

• NEA Writer's Corner Writer's Statement
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