Ashes and Hope: From Kabul to Chicago

A novel drawn from Fazl-Ahad Ahadi's own life, told through a narrator he calls Sadeq — a teacher who, rather than hand over his library, set fire to it himself, out of love rather than hatred, so that what it held would not be kept under lock by tyranny. Sadeq is now rebuilding a life with his family in Chicago, in an orderly and soundless cold. Ahadi writes that the book was not a literary choice but something closer to a necessity: years under war and censorship, then exile into a language not his own, returned him to words — this time to keep alive what stood at the edge of being forgotten. Text in Dari/Persian.

Author: فضل‌احد احدی

Original title: خاکستر و امید: از کابل تا شیکاگو