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A Restless Mind 40.92, 26.31
"Majedi captures the high emotion of the narrator's predicament... [and] builds to a poignant conclusion. A... powerful novella about exile and migration." — Kirkus Reviews
Featured in Reedsy Discovery
At coordinates 40 . 92, 26 . 31, human rights are nothing but a brochure. Survival is a cold, muddy river.
In the freezing winter of 2022, an Iranian refugee finds himself shivering on the Turkish-Greek border. He is not the noble hero of a sanitized novel; he is a man exhausted by the "choreography of power" that dictates who lives and who dies.
Fleeing the ruins of Khorramshahr and the suffocating shadow of the "Generation of ’57"—the revolutionaries who spent his future before he was even born—he seeks freedom in the West. But what he encounters is not a sanctuary, but a brutal gauntlet. From the "human rights punch" delivered by a Greek border guard to the suffocating stench of a detention hall, his journey is a dismantling of dignity.
Trapped between the tyranny of the Mullahs he fled and the hypocrisy of the Europe he seeks, his mind becomes his only refuge and his torture chamber. He dissects the lies of political Islam, the hollowness of Western "woke" culture, and the crushing weight of history on an ordinary life.
Yet, amidst the mud and the strip-searches, a single ember refuses to die: the memory of a mother who stitched meat into meals she never tasted, serving as his silent North Star.
A Restless Mind is a searing, visceral novella that refuses to offer easy hope. It is the story of a man who, to survive a drowning river, must scream the very words he spent a lifetime escaping: "Allahu Akbar."
Featured in Reedsy Discovery
At coordinates 40 . 92, 26 . 31, human rights are nothing but a brochure. Survival is a cold, muddy river.
In the freezing winter of 2022, an Iranian refugee finds himself shivering on the Turkish-Greek border. He is not the noble hero of a sanitized novel; he is a man exhausted by the "choreography of power" that dictates who lives and who dies.
Fleeing the ruins of Khorramshahr and the suffocating shadow of the "Generation of ’57"—the revolutionaries who spent his future before he was even born—he seeks freedom in the West. But what he encounters is not a sanctuary, but a brutal gauntlet. From the "human rights punch" delivered by a Greek border guard to the suffocating stench of a detention hall, his journey is a dismantling of dignity.
Trapped between the tyranny of the Mullahs he fled and the hypocrisy of the Europe he seeks, his mind becomes his only refuge and his torture chamber. He dissects the lies of political Islam, the hollowness of Western "woke" culture, and the crushing weight of history on an ordinary life.
Yet, amidst the mud and the strip-searches, a single ember refuses to die: the memory of a mother who stitched meat into meals she never tasted, serving as his silent North Star.
A Restless Mind is a searing, visceral novella that refuses to offer easy hope. It is the story of a man who, to survive a drowning river, must scream the very words he spent a lifetime escaping: "Allahu Akbar."
104 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 2, 2025
2 people are currently reading
1 person want to read
About the author
Emad Majedi
1 bookEmad Majedi was born in the ruins of Khorramshahr, Iran, in the shadow of the post-1979 era. He grew up navigating a landscape defined by the paradoxes of religious tyranny and the lingering aftermath of war.
• His writing is not an attempt to sanitize the refugee experience but to document the "restless mind" that accompanies displacement. Drawing from his own harrowing journey across the Turkish-Greek border, Majedi dissects the choreography of power—from the brutal detention halls of Europe to the suffocating streets of his homeland. His work challenges both the oppressive regimes of the East and the performative humanitarianism of the West.
• His debut novella, "A Restless Mind 40.92, 26.31," was selected as a featured title in Reedsy Discovery’s "Beautiful, Provocative, Unforgettable Reads" lineup. Praised as a "powerful" account of fear and fragile hope, Majedi currently lives in Ontario, Canada, where he continues to write about the spaces between borders and the cost of survival.
• His writing is not an attempt to sanitize the refugee experience but to document the "restless mind" that accompanies displacement. Drawing from his own harrowing journey across the Turkish-Greek border, Majedi dissects the choreography of power—from the brutal detention halls of Europe to the suffocating streets of his homeland. His work challenges both the oppressive regimes of the East and the performative humanitarianism of the West.
• His debut novella, "A Restless Mind 40.92, 26.31," was selected as a featured title in Reedsy Discovery’s "Beautiful, Provocative, Unforgettable Reads" lineup. Praised as a "powerful" account of fear and fragile hope, Majedi currently lives in Ontario, Canada, where he continues to write about the spaces between borders and the cost of survival.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
December 5, 2025
Emad Majedi’s A Restless Mind is an unflinching and haunting exploration of a young man who sought freedom from his country and religion. However, as he embarks on this journey, he is faced with adversities that challenge his faith, test his resilience, and shake his identity.
This narrative is visceral, as the author's journey unrelentingly exposed the harsh reality of humanity. Religious discrimination, sensory desensitization, and guilt affect the author on his journey; his mother's memory is a straw he clutches at as a drowning man with no clear vision of his future.
I loved this book wholly.
This narrative is visceral, as the author's journey unrelentingly exposed the harsh reality of humanity. Religious discrimination, sensory desensitization, and guilt affect the author on his journey; his mother's memory is a straw he clutches at as a drowning man with no clear vision of his future.
I loved this book wholly.
December 8, 2025
Set in February 2022, A RESTLESS MIND unfolds the harrowing journey of a young Iranian refugee who, having fled the barbarity of the Islamic Regime in Iran for Turkey, now finds himself attempting to cross the border into Greece.
Subjected to brutality, starvation, and sleep deprivation, and beginning to realize that the Western freedom he is running toward is no more than a construct, he turns inward. His mind, both sanctuary and prison, filters through personal memories while ruminating, with chilling insight, upon the warped ideologies that have placed him in this hellscape.
Majedi’s novella is a blistering debut. Following a brief but powerful Prologue, the story opens on a freezing winter night at the Turkish-Greek border with raw immediacy that instantly grips the reader.
Told through a first-person perspective, the voice of Majedi’s narrator compels from the beginning. Emotionally intimate, intense yet controlled, he shares his observations of the forsaken borderland and the other refugees while interleaving backstory and introspection.
This weaving of past and present works beautifully. Majedi’s chapters are a series of short paragraphs that flicker between the narrator’s internal dialogue and external events. Both gather angry, desperate momentum as the novella progresses.
Majedi’s writing is hauntingly beautiful. Poised and cerebral, he carries the reader deep into the borderland and into the narrator's mind. He portrays the desolate geography with dreary realism and details the freezing weather with bone-chilling clarity.
The torturous crossing is relayed with visceral candor. Chapter 6, “The Detention Hall”, is appalling as it is compelling. The squalor and hunger mixed with a violent, unfamiliar environment and the toxic behavior of fellow refugees are relayed with heavy relentlessness.
As the nightmarish situation increases, Majedi’s narrator retreats into his mind, reminiscing but also exposing the rampant corruption, hypocrisy, and moral turpitude that flows from the Mullahs’ vicious, subjugating dogma into the specious Western rhetoric infected with woke platitudes. He debates, conjectures, and questions everything, taking the reader with him into this world of dark, provocative complexity.
Throughout the novella, the narrator returns to thoughts of his mother, who has little chance to forge an identity. Majedi chooses to leave his narrator nameless, adding to his loss of identity, though this becomes horribly ironic when he saves himself the only way he knows how.
Sharp, searching, and utterly of the moment, A RESTLESS mind is a compulsive read. Highly recommended.
Subjected to brutality, starvation, and sleep deprivation, and beginning to realize that the Western freedom he is running toward is no more than a construct, he turns inward. His mind, both sanctuary and prison, filters through personal memories while ruminating, with chilling insight, upon the warped ideologies that have placed him in this hellscape.
Majedi’s novella is a blistering debut. Following a brief but powerful Prologue, the story opens on a freezing winter night at the Turkish-Greek border with raw immediacy that instantly grips the reader.
Told through a first-person perspective, the voice of Majedi’s narrator compels from the beginning. Emotionally intimate, intense yet controlled, he shares his observations of the forsaken borderland and the other refugees while interleaving backstory and introspection.
This weaving of past and present works beautifully. Majedi’s chapters are a series of short paragraphs that flicker between the narrator’s internal dialogue and external events. Both gather angry, desperate momentum as the novella progresses.
Majedi’s writing is hauntingly beautiful. Poised and cerebral, he carries the reader deep into the borderland and into the narrator's mind. He portrays the desolate geography with dreary realism and details the freezing weather with bone-chilling clarity.
The torturous crossing is relayed with visceral candor. Chapter 6, “The Detention Hall”, is appalling as it is compelling. The squalor and hunger mixed with a violent, unfamiliar environment and the toxic behavior of fellow refugees are relayed with heavy relentlessness.
As the nightmarish situation increases, Majedi’s narrator retreats into his mind, reminiscing but also exposing the rampant corruption, hypocrisy, and moral turpitude that flows from the Mullahs’ vicious, subjugating dogma into the specious Western rhetoric infected with woke platitudes. He debates, conjectures, and questions everything, taking the reader with him into this world of dark, provocative complexity.
Throughout the novella, the narrator returns to thoughts of his mother, who has little chance to forge an identity. Majedi chooses to leave his narrator nameless, adding to his loss of identity, though this becomes horribly ironic when he saves himself the only way he knows how.
Sharp, searching, and utterly of the moment, A RESTLESS mind is a compulsive read. Highly recommended.
December 8, 2025
An Insightful Tale of the Life of a Refugee
A RESTLESS MIND 40.92, 26.31 by Emad Majedi is a beautifully made story that really touches the reader's heart. It shares the emotional journey of a young Iranian man who had to flee his homeland due to war and now faces numerous hardships as a refugee in Turkey. His desperate decision to cross into Greece in hopes of a better life shows just how tough and uncertain his situation is.
The story genuinely reveals what life can be like for refugees- from forced labor and human rights violations to discrimination based on race and religion. It also highlights how the powerful leaders in his homeland have corrupted everything, including education, to serve their own selfish interests.
Readers will find themselves eager to see if he makes it safely into Turkey. Many will relate to the main character's struggles, feeling his pain and questioning whether fleeing was the only choice or if life is worth the pain. The story also invites readers to think about whether those in power truly want to fix the problems or if they benefit from keeping them going.
The author does a wonderful job creating the plot and setting up the world the story takes place in. The story is easy to follow, vivid, and makes you feel like you're right there with the character on his journey. It's a fast, exciting read that keeps you hooked from start to finish.
A RESTLESS MIND 40.92, 26.31 by Emad Majedi is a beautifully made story that really touches the reader's heart. It shares the emotional journey of a young Iranian man who had to flee his homeland due to war and now faces numerous hardships as a refugee in Turkey. His desperate decision to cross into Greece in hopes of a better life shows just how tough and uncertain his situation is.
The story genuinely reveals what life can be like for refugees- from forced labor and human rights violations to discrimination based on race and religion. It also highlights how the powerful leaders in his homeland have corrupted everything, including education, to serve their own selfish interests.
Readers will find themselves eager to see if he makes it safely into Turkey. Many will relate to the main character's struggles, feeling his pain and questioning whether fleeing was the only choice or if life is worth the pain. The story also invites readers to think about whether those in power truly want to fix the problems or if they benefit from keeping them going.
The author does a wonderful job creating the plot and setting up the world the story takes place in. The story is easy to follow, vivid, and makes you feel like you're right there with the character on his journey. It's a fast, exciting read that keeps you hooked from start to finish.
December 8, 2025
Just finished this and wow, it really sticks with you. Reading it feels like finally taking off a pair of shoes that never quite fit, and then stepping into a world that’s both delicate and brutally real.
Majedi captures that inner noise, the kind of mental tug of war between memory, guilt, and little flickers of hope, so well that it feels immediate, almost personal. The story follows a man straddling borders, both on the map and inside himself, dealing with loss and this deep, restless longing.
The book doesn’t wrap things up neatly or hand you easy emotions. Instead, it just sits with you. It makes you wonder about who we are, what home means, and what it truly takes to keep going.
By the end, you’re left thinking about the borders we carry inside us, the memories that haunt, and the quiet persistence that keeps a restless mind alive. It’s not necessarily a light read, but it’s deeply rewarding. Recommended!
Majedi captures that inner noise, the kind of mental tug of war between memory, guilt, and little flickers of hope, so well that it feels immediate, almost personal. The story follows a man straddling borders, both on the map and inside himself, dealing with loss and this deep, restless longing.
The book doesn’t wrap things up neatly or hand you easy emotions. Instead, it just sits with you. It makes you wonder about who we are, what home means, and what it truly takes to keep going.
By the end, you’re left thinking about the borders we carry inside us, the memories that haunt, and the quiet persistence that keeps a restless mind alive. It’s not necessarily a light read, but it’s deeply rewarding. Recommended!
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February 1, 2026۱۰۰ صفحه کتاب برای من یک عمر گذشت.
قبل از کشتار دی ۴۰۴ شروع کردم به خوندنش. خیلی قبلتر، و از همون شروع خوندنش برام مثل یه عذاب بود. من فقط نمیخوندم، به یاد میاوردم. میتونستم به خوبی برای فضای فکری و سیاسی و اجتماعی که نویسنده از ایران ترسیم میکنه مثال شخصی پیدا کنم. میتونستم خودمو بذارم جای شخصیت اصلی و خودم رو تو اون اتاق نمور کثیف تصور کنم که روی پتوهای خیس از ادرار نشستم.
سه هفتهای از کشتار دی میگذره و من بلاخره در ۱۲ بهمن تمومش کردم.
ج.ا. رو با این کتاب به بقیه میشه شناسوند، با همین ۱۰۰ صفحه.
تو برای من جزو عزیزترینهایی عماد.
قبل از کشتار دی ۴۰۴ شروع کردم به خوندنش. خیلی قبلتر، و از همون شروع خوندنش برام مثل یه عذاب بود. من فقط نمیخوندم، به یاد میاوردم. میتونستم به خوبی برای فضای فکری و سیاسی و اجتماعی که نویسنده از ایران ترسیم میکنه مثال شخصی پیدا کنم. میتونستم خودمو بذارم جای شخصیت اصلی و خودم رو تو اون اتاق نمور کثیف تصور کنم که روی پتوهای خیس از ادرار نشستم.
سه هفتهای از کشتار دی میگذره و من بلاخره در ۱۲ بهمن تمومش کردم.
ج.ا. رو با این کتاب به بقیه میشه شناسوند، با همین ۱۰۰ صفحه.
تو برای من جزو عزیزترینهایی عماد.
January 7, 2026
A Restless Mind 40.92, 26.31 is not a story you read for comfort. It’s a story you read because it refuses to let you look away.
Set on a frozen border in the winter of 2022, Emad Majedi’s novella drops us inside the body and mind of an Iranian refugee who has already survived one kind of tyranny and is now colliding with another. There’s no heroic framing here, no polished narrative arc designed to make suffering palatable. What Majedi gives us instead is exhaustion—physical, political, psychological. The kind that comes from being crushed between ideologies that claim moral authority while offering none. The border is not just a place; it’s a state of existence, where survival is stripped of dignity and human rights read like marketing copy no one intends to honor.
What makes this book hit so hard isn’t only the brutality of the journey—though that brutality is rendered with stark, unflinching clarity—but the interior landscape of the narrator’s mind. His thoughts loop and spiral, dissecting political Islam, Western hypocrisy, inherited revolutions, and the quiet violence of being born into a history you never chose. His mind becomes both shelter and interrogation room, a place where memory offers brief warmth before turning sharp again. Majedi doesn’t soften these reflections or package them neatly. He lets them sit, unresolved and uncomfortable, just as they would in real life.
Amid the cold mud and institutional cruelty, the presence of the narrator’s mother cuts through the darkness with devastating restraint. She isn’t idealized or romanticized; she’s remembered through sacrifice, through what she gave up without ever naming it as such. These moments don’t offer relief so much as grounding. They remind us that behind every headline and policy debate is a private ledger of love, loss, and unpaid emotional debt.
This is a slim book, but it carries enormous weight. It doesn’t promise hope, redemption, or clarity. What it offers instead is honesty—about power, about borders, about the cost of survival when every system you encounter demands a piece of you. A Restless Mind 40.92, 26.31 reads less like a novella and more like a reckoning. It stays with you not because it shocks, but because it tells the truth without blinking.
Set on a frozen border in the winter of 2022, Emad Majedi’s novella drops us inside the body and mind of an Iranian refugee who has already survived one kind of tyranny and is now colliding with another. There’s no heroic framing here, no polished narrative arc designed to make suffering palatable. What Majedi gives us instead is exhaustion—physical, political, psychological. The kind that comes from being crushed between ideologies that claim moral authority while offering none. The border is not just a place; it’s a state of existence, where survival is stripped of dignity and human rights read like marketing copy no one intends to honor.
What makes this book hit so hard isn’t only the brutality of the journey—though that brutality is rendered with stark, unflinching clarity—but the interior landscape of the narrator’s mind. His thoughts loop and spiral, dissecting political Islam, Western hypocrisy, inherited revolutions, and the quiet violence of being born into a history you never chose. His mind becomes both shelter and interrogation room, a place where memory offers brief warmth before turning sharp again. Majedi doesn’t soften these reflections or package them neatly. He lets them sit, unresolved and uncomfortable, just as they would in real life.
Amid the cold mud and institutional cruelty, the presence of the narrator’s mother cuts through the darkness with devastating restraint. She isn’t idealized or romanticized; she’s remembered through sacrifice, through what she gave up without ever naming it as such. These moments don’t offer relief so much as grounding. They remind us that behind every headline and policy debate is a private ledger of love, loss, and unpaid emotional debt.
This is a slim book, but it carries enormous weight. It doesn’t promise hope, redemption, or clarity. What it offers instead is honesty—about power, about borders, about the cost of survival when every system you encounter demands a piece of you. A Restless Mind 40.92, 26.31 reads less like a novella and more like a reckoning. It stays with you not because it shocks, but because it tells the truth without blinking.
December 8, 2025
A RESTLESS MIND is a novel about an Iranian refugee trying to cross the frozen Turkish-Greek border. While much of the book's tension comes from the physical experiences of the protagonist, most of the trauma suffered during the journey comes from the protagonist's complex relationship with the systems which play a part in creating him. The protagonist escapes one oppressive regime only to face the hypocrisies of Europe. This creates an intense, contemplative theme in the book, with many sections of the story being characterized by the author's candid openness about the false hopes that can arise when the reality does not meet the ideal. Many times the conflict is created by these contradictions causes an individual to experience slower pacing in the story. However, by allowing a slow build towards the conflict, many times in the story will provide insight on a deeper space than what many other stories of this nature would consider.
Beneath the survival struggle lies the protagonist’s uneasy relationship with the systems that shaped him. He walks away from one regime only to collide with the hollow gaps in Europe’s promises of “freedom.” These reflections can slow the pacing at times, yet they add an honesty that sets the book apart. The story doesn’t rush past disillusionment but instead sits with it, showing how doubt can cling long after physical danger fades. It’s a depth that many similar narratives gloss over.
Some sections recall the narrator's mother's memories, balancing the novel's harsh circumstances. These recollections build a foundation between the protagonist's emotions and those of the female characters. They highlight an average life shaped by shared feelings, even when separated by fences and political struggles. solid 4 out of 5 stars
Beneath the survival struggle lies the protagonist’s uneasy relationship with the systems that shaped him. He walks away from one regime only to collide with the hollow gaps in Europe’s promises of “freedom.” These reflections can slow the pacing at times, yet they add an honesty that sets the book apart. The story doesn’t rush past disillusionment but instead sits with it, showing how doubt can cling long after physical danger fades. It’s a depth that many similar narratives gloss over.
Some sections recall the narrator's mother's memories, balancing the novel's harsh circumstances. These recollections build a foundation between the protagonist's emotions and those of the female characters. They highlight an average life shaped by shared feelings, even when separated by fences and political struggles. solid 4 out of 5 stars
December 4, 2025
A Restless Mind 40.92, 26.31 by Emad Majedi is an incredible work of fiction about people smuggling themselves from Turkey to Greece. Emad’s narration is unflinching and intimate: following the desperate escape, there are occasional admissions from one of the men that are very brutally honest hence they register as psychologically traumatizing. These moments linger and force the reader to confront the human cost of survival.
The moment Iraq invaded Iran and the subsequent occupation under Saddam’s forces adds another layer of weight. Emad does not only recount a journey but he interweaves his past and present. He paints a life that is fractured by forced migration, fear and war. By recalling his childhood memories, he gives the reader context of where he came from and why leaving was both a necessity and tragedy.
There is a sad mood in the read. The insult, starvation, humiliation and torture is not glossed over. Instead, the story exposes the indignities inflicted by smugglers, a system of human rights failures and indifferent border authorities. The author blames them for perpetuating such activities.
This book offers a raw look at what it means to be driven by desperation, to be vulnerable and to be displaced. For people who are ready to confront uncomfortable realities, this book provides both empathy and insight.
The moment Iraq invaded Iran and the subsequent occupation under Saddam’s forces adds another layer of weight. Emad does not only recount a journey but he interweaves his past and present. He paints a life that is fractured by forced migration, fear and war. By recalling his childhood memories, he gives the reader context of where he came from and why leaving was both a necessity and tragedy.
There is a sad mood in the read. The insult, starvation, humiliation and torture is not glossed over. Instead, the story exposes the indignities inflicted by smugglers, a system of human rights failures and indifferent border authorities. The author blames them for perpetuating such activities.
This book offers a raw look at what it means to be driven by desperation, to be vulnerable and to be displaced. For people who are ready to confront uncomfortable realities, this book provides both empathy and insight.
December 4, 2025
Chilling and stark, A Restless Mind is one Iranian immigrant's dangerous journey out of an oppressive Islamic regime. However, it's much more than a simple escape novel. As the novel progresses and our migrants brave freezing weather and dangerous climes, our hero becomes much more secluded in his own mind, giving the novel an almost psychadelic feel. He also begins to note the folly of the west which he attempts to flee to. Unable to go back to his home, and uncertain of his future in Europe, he becomes a prisoner of his own mind.
A Restless Mind is a gripping novel of finding oneself while on a daring migration journey. It's grounded, heartfelt, and intimate.
A Restless Mind is a gripping novel of finding oneself while on a daring migration journey. It's grounded, heartfelt, and intimate.
December 14, 2025
Eye opening
The author takes the reader on a harrowing journey of one man's escape from Iran. The story identifies the inhumane treatment the man encounters as he plunges deeper and deeper into an abyss of despair. It is about managing to survive in spite of despair.
The book explores social and political issues from an individual perspective and how the people who profess support are often the ones who are the biggest offenders.
This is a good book for those who want a human perspective rather than just a news story or propaganda.
The author takes the reader on a harrowing journey of one man's escape from Iran. The story identifies the inhumane treatment the man encounters as he plunges deeper and deeper into an abyss of despair. It is about managing to survive in spite of despair.
The book explores social and political issues from an individual perspective and how the people who profess support are often the ones who are the biggest offenders.
This is a good book for those who want a human perspective rather than just a news story or propaganda.
December 4, 2025
Emad Majedi’s A Restless Mind is a journey of self-discovery through one of the most unlikely situations- a refugee fleeing from persecution. Told through the eyes of a refugee, the book is an intense character-building ordeal that sees him begin to question what he is really running towards. Majedi brings the perilous border-crossing journey to life, highlighting the blistering cold and stormy seas.
December 5, 2025
A Restless Mind 40.92, 26.31 is a gripping, almost solemn read. It follows a group of travellers fleeing from Iran's regime to Greece. However, the journey is far from easy, and as our nameless main character ventures further, his mind becomes his only safe space, which in itself causes him to grow more and more restless.
A Restless Mind is a bleak look into the migrant journey, one that will move anyone who reads.
A Restless Mind is a bleak look into the migrant journey, one that will move anyone who reads.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews