Award-winning writer Joobin Bekhrad debuts with a tale of teenage angst and rock & roll set in the Iranian capital

Drawing on his own experiences, Joobin Bekhrad has written his debut novel, Coming Down Again, about Asha, a broken-hearted schoolboy who finds himself daydreaming one summer about escaping Iran and moving to London to become a rock star there.

'Coming Down Again was inspired by my own experiences and feelings as a teenager, as well time spent in Tehran', says Bekhrad. Of course, rock and roll particularly the music of the Rolling Stones musical icons such as Keith Richards and David Bowie, and the power of the electric guitar were also great inspirations.

Down and out in the manic, bustling Iranian capital, Asha only finds solace in Ghermezi, his battered cherry-red guitar, the pin-ups on his bedroom wall, and his dreams. Though he longs to leave Tehran, in which he sees no place or future for himself, he also holds in his heart a special love and affection for the only city he s ever known.

Iran is very often a country that is misunderstood but Coming Down Again shows it from a unique and different perspective that allows readers to simultaneously immerse themselves in the culture of beautiful, ancient land, as well as the mind of a disillusioned teenager in Tehran. 

 

Available via Amazon

 

About Joobin Bekhrad

An award-winning writer, Joobin Bekhrad (BBA, MSc.) is the founder and Editor of REORIENT (www.reorientmag.com), a publication celebrating contemporary Middle Eastern arts and culture. He has contributed to such publications as the Cairo Review of Global Affairs, The Economist, The Guardian, Aesthetica, Artsy, Christie’s, Encyclopaedia Iranica, Harper’s Bazaar Art Arabia, Canvas, and Songlines, been interviewed by news outlets such as Newsweek and the CBC, and seen his articles translated into Persian, Arabic, Italian, Russian, and Chinese, among other languages. Primarily writing about visual art, literature, music, and film, many of his articles focus on subjects such as identity, Persian culture, and the experience of living in the Iranian diaspora. In 2015, Joobin was granted an International Award for Art Criticism (IAAC) by London’s Royal College of Art. He is also the author of a new translation of Omar Khayyam’s poems from Persian into English, the foreword to Afro-Iran, and Coming Down Again, a novella.