Kader Abdolah was born in Tehran but emigrated to the Netherlands in 1988 where he has become a star of the Dutch fiction scene. In this podcast, he explains how he used the storytelling traditions of ancient Persia to reclaim the 19th-century history of Iran from the European chroniclers of the time. The rise of the Ayatollahs and the continental carve-up that has led to today's crisis in the middle east are prefigured in the story of Shah Naser, his many wives, and his fatally misguided attempts to resist modernisation.
Indian poet and activist Meena Kandasamy's first novel investigates the limits of fiction in an account of a 1968 massacre in Tamil Nadu in which 44 innocent agricultural workers were burnt to death.
Reading list:
The Gypsy Goddess by Meena Kandasamy (Atlantic)
The King by Kader Abdolah (Canongate)
