Dare the Sea

Debut short-story collection in English from acclaimed fiction writer Ali Hosseini The stories in Dare the Sea explore Iran’s landscape, culture, and the undercurrent of change affecting its people—both in Iran and the United States. The stories in the first half of the collection are set in Iran in the time before and just after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Each tale discloses the obstacles rural Iranians lived with on a daily basis and the exigencies of survival: petty theft, corruption, drug trafficking, religion, and love. Stories in the second half take place in exile, where characters are seemingly dropped into American locales like the Midwest or Hawaii, taking in their situation with only the survival skills they’ve learned in their own land and enduring the hardships of being strangers in a new country.
Loosely interconnected by reappearing characters, the stories in Dare the Sea are strongly linked by the country of Iran, its landscape, its history, and its hold on its people.

Acclaimed fiction writer Ali Hosseini’s debut short-story collection in English explores Iran’s landscape, its culture, and the undercurrent of change affecting its people—both in Iran and the United States.

ALI HOSSEINI is an Iranian American author who writes in Persian and English. He has published two novels in English, The Lemon Grove (2012) and The Place of Stones (2017), the latter a finalist for the John Gardner Fiction Prize. His short fiction has appeared in Kenyon Review, Antioch Review, and Guernica, among others. He came to the United States as a college student and worked as a farm laborer, construction worker, security guard, and later as an IT specialist. He lives in the Boston area.

Acknowledgments
PART ONE
City of Chaos
There’s a Tale with the Wind
Land of Miracles
Rising Waters
Turning Bread to Stone
Black Mountain Pass
Shireen
Fast Friends
In Those Days
This Lame and Stubborn Mule
PART TWO
Traffic Lights
Chicle Un Cordoba
Koh-i-noor
When the Rain Stops
Smiling Pistachios
Conference of the Birds
Dare the Sea
NowRuz Gifts
Earth Angels
Magic Island
Departures
Day of Solitude

"The stories in Dare the Sea highlight the complexity of Iranian identity, with plots challenging myopic tropes about the Middle East and the American Dream. Deftly employing moments of unexpected humor and joy in dire situations, Hosseini's fiction never leans on convenient trauma or a singular narrative of Iran or Iranians. The depth and breadth of these stories is remarkable." —Aram Mrjoian, editor of We Are All Armenian: Voices from the Diaspora “Each of Ali Hosseini’s remarkable stories creates a vivid world that is both familiar and eerily new. They dazzle with deep insights, the characters swept up in dramas that are both intensely personal and yet communal as well. I found myself laughing out loud at the abundant wit, but also caught up in the mystery and sadness that strike at the heart of the human. The stories in Dare the Sea sweep us up—they are a cause for joy and celebration.” —David H. Lynn, editor emeritus of The Kenyon Review