Kooshyar Karimi’s Followers (35)

Kooshyar Karimi

Born

Tehran, Iran

Genre

Memoir, Nonfiction

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Kooshyar Karimi was born in 1968 in the slums of Tehran, Iran, to a family living in abject poverty. His mother, Homa, was an orphaned Jew who married out of desperation to Khalil, his Moslim father, a bus driver with three wives and six other children to feed. At the age of six, Kooshyar was compelled to work in order to contribute to the paltry income of his family. He was only eleven years old when the Iranian Islamic Revolution ended the oldest lasting monarchy in the world.

Amidst this post‐revolutionary chaos, and the bloodshed of the Iran‐Iraq war, Kooshyar pursued his education through to medical school with the determination to avoid war, stay alive, and support his mother. It is from here that he went on to become a published auth Kooshyar Karimi was born in 1968 in the slums of Tehran, Iran, to a family living in abject poverty. His mother, Homa, was an orphaned Jew who married out of desperation to Khalil, his Moslim father, a bus driver with three wives and six other children to feed. At the age of six, Kooshyar was compelled to work in order to contribute to the paltry income of his family. He was only eleven years old when the Iranian Islamic Revolution ended the oldest lasting monarchy in the world.

Amidst this post‐revolutionary chaos, and the bloodshed of the Iran‐Iraq war, Kooshyar pursued his education through to medical school with the determination to avoid war, stay alive, and support his mother. It is from here that he went on to become a published author, award‐winning translator, doctor, husband and father by the age of twenty six. After over two years of military service, Kooshyar began to successfully practice medicine and began the research for his book, A History of Iranian Jews. It is due partly to this dangerous project that Kooshyar, walking down the paved footpath to his home, was kidnapped by the Islamic Intelligence Service in the winter of 1998. Tortured, burnt, and whipped over 62 days, Kooshyar found himself faced with an unimaginable decision ... to spy for MOIS against his own people or to be tortured slowly to death. His forced cooperation was a significant factor in the arrest of thirteen Iranian Jews in March 1999, a case that caused an international outcry.

Later, knowing that his value to the intelligence service had expired, Kooshyar realised that if he did not escape, he would soon be executed. Using the survival instincts he had acquired in childhood, and a fateful connection from the past, Kooshyar manages to make his escape from Iran. Finally, after 13 long months of dread and secrecy hiding with his wife and children in a tiny basement deep below an apartment block in Istanbul, he and his family were granted a political refugee visa to Australia by the UNHCR. He is now an Australian citizen, fellow of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, a member of the Australian Society of Cosmetic Medicine, and member of the Skin Cancer Society of Australia and New Zealand. He practises medicine full‐time in New South Wales, and writes in his spare time. ...more

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Kooshyar Karimi’s books

Average rating: 4.29 · 1,791 ratings · 186 reviews · 5 distinct works • Similar authors

	Leila's Secret 4.29 avg rating — 1,445 ratings — published 2015 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Journey of a Thousand Storms: A Refugee's Story 4.45 avg rating — 259 ratings — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	I confess - Revelations in Exile 3.74 avg rating — 81 ratings — published 2012 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Podróz tysiaca burz 4.33 avg rating — 6 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Leila's Secret by Kooshyar Karimi (2015-11-19) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Kooshyar Karimi (?)

“...but of all the women who've come to me with an unwanted pregnacy, Leila is the first who has ever asked me to save her child. I stand looking down at her. (...) It is as if I were looking at the archetypal image of the woman who surrenders to the craft of the seducer, who opens her heart and releases the bounty of her love in a most ill-advised way. Seduced and abandoned - it's an old, old story, and Leila, in her tenderness and beauty, summarises millennia of suffering, millennia of heartbreak and despair.”
― Kooshyar Karimi

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Kooshyar Karimi’s Followers (35)

Kooshyar Karimi

Combine EditionsKooshyar Karimi’s books

Topics Mentioning This Author

Combine Editions
Kooshyar Karimi’s books