Rain Born

Zoha Kazemi

Contents (43)

Rain Born

Zoha Kazemi

Austin Macauley Publishers

2020-01-31

Rain Born

About the Author
Dedication
Copyright Information ©
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38

About the Author

Zoha Kazemi is a young Iranian writer and the first writer in Iran who has written professionally in speculative fiction, especially the genres of science fiction and fantasy. She explores fundamental concepts like love, immortality, death and religion in her soft sci-fi novels. She creates and depicts estranged and self-sufficient worlds with complex cultural, economical and political structures in her novels where she puts to test many challenging ideas and thoughts about the nature of mankind, its socially constructed beliefs and values and their effects.

Rain Born is Kazemi’s eighth novel but her first book written in English. She has written and published in Persian before: seven novels, a flash fiction collection and a three-volume children’s novels.

Dedication

To my Mother and Father

Copyright Information ©

Zoha Kazemi (2020)

The right of Zoha Kazemi to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528949750 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781528972383 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2020)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

25 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5LQ

Chapter 1

The boatman, not fully awake, hears the laughter and shouting of children playing in the water at dawn, and the excited skirl of seagulls flying around the harbour to catch the silver fish shining on the surface of the sea. The boatman is used to hearing these sounds in his boat cabin and resists opening his eyes and stepping into another mundane morning. It is the beginning of the short, dry season, and the weary mothers longing to catch another hour of sleep send their boys to swim around the harbour. This year, the refugee children of the southern ships have joined the boys and girls of the Oxan Island. Every morning, they step out of their make-shift sheds of the floating Oxan harbour, swim around the Island wall in the filthy ooze of the water to get to the clearer area of the main harbour where they feel safer playing around the boats. They have disturbed boatman’s sleep who is tired of the long journey he had. He opens his eyes in the full darkness of his boat cabin. His passengers had spent the night on the island. They had arrived last evening before sun down, before the Oxan gates had closed. They did ask him to join them, but the boatman was not sure if he could fall asleep on land. He is used to the mild motion of the sea that gently puts him to sleep like a cradle. He didn’t give any explanations, just an excuse saying that someone should watch the boat overnight.