Kader Abdolah was born in Iran in 1954. While studying physics in Tehran, he joined a secret leftist party that fought against the dictatorship of the Shah and the subsequent dictatorship of the ayatollahs. He wrote for an illegal journal and clandestinely published two books in Iran. In 1988 he arrived in the Netherlands as a political refugee at the invitation of the UN. He now writes in Dutch and is the author of two collections of short stories and a number of works of non-fiction. ‘Kader Abdolah’ is a pen-name adopted in memory of friends who died under the currrent Iranian regime.