"I left Iran with two suitcases and a backpack brimming with clothes and books, the essentials. I left behind the rest of my belongings in my room at my parents’ home, in Tehran. I assumed I would go back every year for a visit and gradually bring what I’d left to my new home.."
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"I was five or so, standing in a line with my mother for rationed butter and sugar on a sizzling, hot summer day. Butter had been out of stock for months, and I hadn’t had my favourite breakfast for so long that I had forgotten how it even tasted. “Maman,” I said, “can I have honey and butter with bread tomorrow morning?”."
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"Like many other Iranians, my mother visits the cemetery at the end of each year, right before Nowruz—Persian New Year—to honor her deceased loved ones. She brings hyacinth bouquets in a rainbow of colors and Sabzeh—sprouted wheat she’s grown herself—to lay on the tombs."
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"Imagine driving for hours through a 45-degree Celsius desert with no air-conditioning. This was my childhood. Our family road trips through Iran's vast Lut Desert, enduring the heat.."
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"It was the summer of 1994, and I was fifteen… Writing in the diary was a self-soothing mechanism—I wrote down every kind word anyone said to me."
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"On April 25th 2023, the Virginia Supreme Court ignored a life-shattering mistake. Though he confessed under a lengthy interrogation, Michael Ledford did not set the fire that killed his son and horribly burned his (then) wife on October 10, 1999."
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"Description of the article about Iranian values... you'll need to fill this in."
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"Description of the article about Iran's secular shift... you'll need to fill this in."
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"As the coronavirus pandemic took hold in Canada and around the world, I began working on a collection of essays about my past experiences as an undocumented immigrant in Canada."
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