Free Fall, Leonardo Alishan (softcover)

Free Fall contains fifty-nine short stories by Leonardo P. Alishan (1951-2005). The reader will find it amazing how fiction and truth are intermingled harmoniously. In the first story of the book the mythical bird, simorgh, gives magical seeds to the narrator that bring forth the stories he writes. Meanwhile, the last story finds the narrator receiving rejection letters from publishers simply because no one was interested in his strange mix of Armenian, Iranian, and American poems.

In between the first and last stories, what comes of those seeds is the fruit of exile and identity crises. In “The Curse,” for example, the author portrays the image of an Iranian poet in exile who loses his language and becomes isolated. On one occasion, when the poet tries to communicate with his wife, she responds, “What are these jeek jeek [chirping] noises you’re making? Why don’t you talk?” However, the poet finds an audience who would understand him—the community of the sparrows.

It is a fact that a new language and culture flourish in the Diaspora where duality and, in some cases, triplication is part of daily life. Being an Iranian-Armenian, Leonardo Alishan experienced both Diasporas, and this book is the result of that experience, which many people can relate to themselves.