The competition for short story writing on COVID-19, which is dedicated to all people writing in Persian across the world, was launched by the Iran Book and Literature House in May.
“The Story of Corona and Us” was the theme of the festival.
Among the winners are “I Wished I Saw Your Smile” by Zeinab Firuznia, “Ritual of Quicklime Powdering” by Mahbubeh Hajimortezai, “Eating Phobia” by Abbas Azimi, “The Rest of Me” by Mahin Sarani-Rad and “Jam-Packed Morgue” by Mojtaba Bani-Asadi.
Also included are “Slickness” by Esmaeil Elahdadi, “Call Him Aziz” by Emad Ebadi, “A Song for a Mermaid” by Najmeh Molavi, “A Symphony for Life” by Hassan Mokhtarzadeh, “I Revolved Around You” by Armaghan Behdarvand, “Memories of the Last Warrior” by Setayesh Salavatian, “Twenty Years and Fourteen Days with Corona” by Zeinab Rezai, “For Whom the Tears Stream” by Zahra Qolizadeh, “Corona and Me” by Farahnaz Sheikh-Bahaeddinzadeh, “Chabahar Mullah” by Mehdi Chegini and “My Adventures and Corona” by Taha Mollazadeh.
The Iran Book and Literature House plans to publish the finalists in a collection.
Coronavirus has become the subject of several cultural contests in Iran since February 2020, when the first cases of the disease were detected in the country.
The Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults launched the International Clean Hands, Save Lives Painting Contest in March 2020.
In addition, a number of Iranian authors began writing stories on the virus to teach children and others how to take care of themselves during the pandemic.
One of the writers is Ali-Asghar Seidabadi, who wrote “Hannah, Our Hero”.
It is about several children including Hannah that go to visit their uncle, Bahman, who doesn’t know that he is infected with COVID-19. All the children are infected, but Hannah escapes uninfected due to her care about the tips for dealing with coronavirus.
The book was also translated into Croatian, Turkish, English, Italian, French and German.
Source:Tehran Times