TEHRAN – Book aficionados will come together at Khaneye Ketab Peydayesh, a major bookstore in Tehran, today to attend a reading session of British children’s book author Sally Nicholls’ debut novel “Ways to Live Forever”.

Persian translators of the book Elaheh Moradi and Milad Bababnejad are scheduled to attend the meeting, which will be organized by the publisher Peydayesh.

“Ways to Live Forever” is a heart-wrenching and gripping story about Sam, an eleven-year-old boy. 

“Sam has leukemia and this book is his diary. In it, he writes lists, pictures, stories, facts and lots of questions. The diary is full of funny stories about day-to-day life with leukemia and all of the things he plans and wants to do before his death,” The Guardian wrote about the book.

“The story grips you, page after page, and you feel more and more wrapped up in the story. It is not only Nicholls’ style of writing that brings this book together but also her characters, tragedies and interesting layout. The book grabs all of your emotions and throws them all over the place, so make sure you have some tissues when you read the last chapter,” it added.

The book won the 2008 Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize in Britain, the 2008 Glen Dimplex (Irish) New Writers Award, 2008 German Luchs des Jahres and 2009 Bristol-based Concorde Children’s Book Award.

Photo: Front cover of the Persian translation of British children’s book author Sally Nicholls’ novel “Ways to Live Forever”.

RM/MMS/YAW