Jack London’s Train

«Jack London’s Train», Farhad Hassanzadeh›s latest work, is a look at the events of the Iran-Iraq war and the resulting strains on people›s lives, a war that, despite the passage of many years since its beginning and end, has unbreakable links with people›s lives. Sam Helchin is a passionate and energetic worker who works in Abadan Refinery. He lives a simple but busy life with his large family. What happens to them is both hopeful and bitter and inevitable. There are many haracters in the story and each of them leaves a strong mark on the process of the narration.

In this novel, Farhad Hassanzadeh, a writer from Abadan, talks about a land whose borders were violated many times and the lives of its people were cruelly torn into a thousand pieces. This novel is narrated in seven chapters, before the war and after the war. These intertwined narratives complete each other and create a future that gives life to characters and memories Farhad Hassanzadeh is as if he is present in the scene after scene of this novel, he walks in the rooms and streets and puts himself in the place of each person in the story. He tells a story full of ups and downs in the dialect of the same region from the point of view of each one. In this novel, it seems that even the objects, walls and windows of the house tell a story, and the characters seem to be torn between innocence and malice. Hassanzadeh has based his story on Iranian identity and culture and the current authenticity in urban spaces.

His simple, fluent and attractive text and his skillful storytelling, combined with his southern tone and dialect, pull out small and sweet events from the heart of everyday events, which are both nostalgic and full of unattainable experiences for the reader.