TEHRAN -- The English translation of Iranian author Ahmad Dehqan’s book “Bearing 270 Degrees” by U.S. translator Paul Sprachman was introduced on Monday at Tehran’s Art Bureau, the Mehr News Agency reported on Wednesday.

Sprachman, who also participated in the ceremony, said that Dehqan’s book can be compared to “The Odyssey” by Homer and the writings of German writer Erich Maria Remarque.

“Bearing 270 Degrees” is a novel about the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, which is known as the Sacred Defense in Iran.

“Dehqan has emphasized the importance of life in his work, and this is quite clear since Nasser, the main character of the story, is kept alive to the end of the book. He appreciates life, and this was one of the reasons why I decided to translate the book,” Sprachman explained.

“I translated the book fourteen times and each time I gave it to a few people to read and express their views. Michael Beard, a writer of books on Sadeq Hedayat, was the one who read the first series of my translation,” he added.

According to Sprachman, all those who read his various translations described it as an interesting novel.

“I later showed the translation to those who knew nothing of the Persian language and then later to several relatives of mine. Anyway, I think I have been able to successfully translate 70 percent of the original book into English, and I hope it will be warmly received by American readers,” he said.

Americans are mostly interested in video games, films, and photos; and the average first edition print run of the major and most serious books in America is not more than 5,000 volumes, Sprachman noted.

He believes that the main readers of the book will be students who have experienced the United States’ wars with Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I am eagerly waiting to hear the viewpoints of students who read this book this semester,” he added.

Sprachman can read and write Persian, Arabic, German, Hindu-Urdu, French, and Latin. He is also somewhat familiar with Chinese, Russian, and Hebrew.

“A Man and Many Worlds: The Notes and Memoirs of Dr. Qasem Ghani” (forthcoming), Mohammad-Ali Jamalzadeh’s “What’s Sauce for the Goose” (translated in 2002) and “Once Upon a Time” (1985), “Esmat’s Journey” (by Ebrahim Golestan, 2002), and “Plagued by the West” (Jalal Al-e Ahmad, 1982) are the Persian books he has previously rendered into English.

Several Iranian writers, including Amir-Hossein Fardi, Morteza Sarhang, Reza Amir-Khani, Mohsen Momeni, and Manijeh Armin, also participated in the ceremony. Fardi said, “We regard Sprachman as one of our colleagues and ask him to select more books to translate. We have a lot to say. We have history, and we want the world to hear about our revolution.”

Dehqan also spoke at the ceremony, saying, “Fiction has been able to reflect the history of our country over the past century. The war was part of this history, and I was one of those who picked up a pen to write about it.”