Bardiya and Queen of Ivory Land
Siamak Golshiri 320 ps Publisher: Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults
Plot: Two boys find a bizarre version of One Thousand and One Nights whose stories moves them from a world to another, a world which is featured as the land of fictions and myths.
To answer the question whether he has recreated stories of One Thousand and One Nights¸ the author said, "My book narrates a fiction and fantasy which is not related to One Thousand and One Nights and its stories. Although the young adult protagonists of my book find a version of One Thousand and One Nights, my novel is independent from the latter." For Golshiri, inclination of adolescents and younger people to fantasy is a way to escape from the current realities and he added, "The modern industrialized human being is seeking for a way to escape from the industrial and routine world and fantasy provide them with such possibility. Today, fantasy not only in Iran, but also all over the world is welcomed mainly because most people are seeking to escape from their routine life." According to this adolescent writer, another reason of inclination to fantasy is that the current world is unpleasant. Therefore, readers of fantasy stories know tries to flee from the bitter truths of reality and create a pleasant heaven in their imagination. It does not mean that real and realistic stories are not attractive.
