
Marjan lives in Kish Island, in the south of Iran. When we arrived in Iran, she had gone to Dubai to apply for a visit visa to the UK, to attend the Edinburgh International Book Festival. As you may know, despite all the documents and the EIBF invitation, her visa got refused. Unfortunately this meant we could not launch her newest book, Bijan & Manije with her being present in the UK as scheduled before. I met her in Tehran when she was back from a frustrating three weeks wait in Dubai.
I had a chance to give her, an advance copy of her latest book, Bijan & Manije. Marjan has a very calm personality, that is probably echoed in her Persian cat! Her quietness and femininity is visible in her illustrations. I could easily see the merchant lady (male in the original story, but a woman in Marjan’s retelling) from The Parrot and the Merchant in her. However, the boldness of Manije from Bijan & Manije was somehow visible behind her looks.

She promised to write her experiences of retelling ancient stories for children today. Then she signed a copy of The Parrot and the Merchant. The signed book will be given away to a lucky winner in a near future event.

Buy The Parrot and the Merchant
Buy Bijan & Manije
Visit our bookstore
A gallery of Marjan Vafaian’s illustrations
Read more about Bijan and Manije:
- Our Exciting forthcoming title: Bijan & Manije. Link
- An amazing adaptation of a Persian ancient epic poetry. Link
- Impressive performances of epic literature in cafe’s and street theaters.Link
Read more about The Parrot and the Merchant:
- The Parrot and the Merchant teaches about true love. Link
- Read David almond’s words about this book in the Guardian. Link
- A blog report about storytelling of this book at Belsize Library. Link
- A review by Carousel. Link
- A review by Jill Bennett. Link
- Learn about Marjan Vafaeian, illustrator of this book. Link
- A blog report of an event at Pimlico Library. Link
- Poetic side of Tiny Owl Publishing. Link
- the importance of introducing diversity to children. Link
- listen to this fantastic report of BBC Radio 4 about Rumi. Link