Coming January 2022
Morteza, a young physician, makes his escape from a country like Iraq, finds asylum in one like Australia. Each year he travels to his native land to treat the victims of terrorist explosions. meanwhile, his new country turns fearful, mean-spirited, eager to shut its doors. On the armature of this story Neil Creighton weaves a work at once epic and lyric. A gifted poet with something urgent to say possesses a powerful voice, especially when his indignation is disciplined and his imagination fired by empathy. Morteza offers memorable and vividly particular imagery; yet no reader will fail to feel its universality.
—Robert Wexelblatt, author of Hsi-Wei Tales