The Condemned Section, authored by Kehan Khajani

The novel (The Condemned's Section) begins with a sentence that reveals the worlds the reader will enter: "In Lakan prison, there are stories like the tales of One Thousand and One Nights. Perhaps a thousand of them are believable, but this one will not be: one night, a man opened the door of the condemned's section, then threw a girl inside." The reader might wonder what crime this girl committed to be thrown into a men's prison? Was this reality or imagination? What is her fate with two hundred and fifty prisoners, distributed across twenty-five cells? "Zapata" is the name the narrator, the prisoner, known for, addicted to hashish, and his role in the prison is a masculine Scheherazade; He distorts the prisoners' stories into comedy so they can enjoy them while they are high, in exchange for cigarettes and hashish. He tells us the story of a girl entering and staying with them for a whole day, and within her story, lives, love, crime, and prison stories of fifteen main prisoners in the novel intertwine. It is a revival of the Arab nights and their succession of tales. The author of this novel experienced prison himself, and his novel has won several literary awards, and critics have discussed it in many critical texts, and readers have embraced it, edition after edition. However, it was banned after reaching its eleventh edition. Translation: Ahmed Haidari Number of pages: 303