An intense personal story of survival

“My drunken state transforms the cries of crickets into opera.”

This book could just as easily have been entitled “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, but I guess that’s already been used!

It’s a look at humanity in the raw from all sides, especially those that take advantage of others who are in desperate circumstances.  It’s a look at how people’s lives are torn apart by narrow-minded ideologies and bullies and their brutality which are spawned and fostered by such regimes.  The trail of human tragedy walked by the author and it’s present until the very end.

In Journey of a Thousand Storms, Kooshyar Karimi gives us an insight into the repressive Iranian regime.  It would appear that the only difference between Iran and other more notorious powers of the recent past is that they haven’t overthrown anyone yet.

However, their version of the Gestapo, KGB or Stasi (insert whichever you prefer), is alive and well and a home for the worst types of depraved people imaginable; those who would bully you into submission and then slit your throat without the blink of an eye.

Thousands have disappeared because they disagreed with the government’s narrow-minded policies but, Kooshyar escaped, albeit after he sold his soul by betraying others. You have to appreciate here that when you are being beaten to within an inch of your life and being burned by cigarettes, this is what you resort to.

His and his family’s next life in Turkey is almost as harrowing, beset by jaundiced views (justified in some cases) and a distinct anti-refugee attitude he sees it countered at times by the generosity of others (usually poor themselves) and moments of sheer luck utilised to their fullest.

This sets him on the road to Australia, a country not of his original choosing, but one he embraces.  As his arranged marriage heads towards its eventual breaking point, he is so immersed in work you can’t help but feel he is almost unknowingly using it to escape some of the realities of his relationship with his family.

In the end, you’d have to read Cinderella or some such to find an ending of similar emotion; never has a book had a more blissful climax than this.

A gripping read, enhanced by the fact that it’s all true.  I’d recommend it generally and particularly to those of extreme political persuasions to hopefully enlighten their minds.

Journey of a Thousand Storms by Kooshyar Karimi is available now from Dymocks. Click here to learn more.