Book Talk: Out of Mesopotamia with Salar Abdoh

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

April 15, 2021 An unprecedented glimpse into "endless war" from a Middle Eastern perspective, Salar Abdoh’s novel, "Out of Mesopotamia," follows in the tradition of the Western canon of martial writers–from Hemingway and Orwell to Tim O'Brien and Philip Caputo–but then subverts and expands upon the genre before completely blowing it apart. Drawing from his firsthand experience of being embedded with Shia militias on the ground in Iraq and Syria, Abdoh gives agency to the voiceless while offering a meditation on war that is moving, humane, darkly funny, and resonantly true. Salar Abdoh was born in Iran and splits his time between Tehran and New York City. He is the author of the novels "Tehran at Twilight," "The Poet Game," and "Opium"; and he is the editor of "Tehran Noir." He teaches in the MFA program at the City College of New York. Out of Mesopotamia is his latest novel.