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On The Table Read, “The Best Book Reader Magazine in the UK“, Allen Grove’s Dadafarin or, The Pessimism begins in the early summer of 2020. A young Zoroastrian man from Iran arrives on a beach on the south coast of England among a group of refugees who have just crossed the English Channel from France. Finding himself in a fractured and unfamiliar world, this is Dadafarin’s story.
A novel that reflects the zeitgeist, Dadafarin or, The Pessimism takes an irreverent look at the inconsistencies of Britain’s new liberal agenda.
Dadafarin
In the early summer of 2020, a young Zoroastrian man from Iran arrives on a beach on the south coast of England among a group of refugees who have just crossed the English Channel from France.
Expecting to find himself in a country fabled far and wide for its history, culture and fairness, Dadafarin instead finds himself thrown into a fractured and unfamiliar world, where Covid19 and the rise of social justice and identity politics have transformed the social and political landscape beyond his wildest imaginings. Accommodated at an hotel in Kent, Dadafarin meets his new friend and mentor, Dr Anton Venngloss, chairperson of the charity Justice in Exile.
Dr Venngloss helps Dadafarin come to grips with the new social order, so different to what he had imagined. Equipped with his new understanding, Dadafarin soon finds himself immersed in the campaign for social justice. He attends a demonstration, parties with Antifa, and falls in love, with unexpected consequences.
Allen Grove
“I decided to write Dadafarin to keep myself occupied during lockdown while I was furloughed, although I had been thinking about writing again for some time. After being unfriended by several people on Facebook when I posted something critical of BLM, I decided to research the new craze for critical social justice and identity politics. This research provided the basis for my novel.”
“Before and during the writing of Dadafarin, I undertook hundreds of hours of research, including on Zoroastrianism. All the episodes in the book are based around real events. The story of why Ibrahim fled Sudan is also based on a true story.
“Several books are mentioned in the novel, all of which I read or re-read, including Candide, which I first read twenty years ago. Unlike Voltaire, I decided not to rely on bizarre coincidences to connect different threads in the story.”
About Allen Grove
Writing under a pseudonym, Allen Grove is the author of several short stories and two novels.
Allen has lived and worked all over the world, spending much of his youth in Africa, and has also worked in the South Pacific, India, and the Middle East. His travels through work have enabled him to visit over 80 countries. After a break from writing of 15 years, Dadafarin, or, The Pessimism, was conceived over a period of a few months in 2021 when he was inspired to write a satirical novel after revisiting one of his favourite books, Candide, or The Optimist, written by Voltaire.
A keen photographer, Allen has also sold work to a number of magazines, newspapers and commercial interests, as well as being short-listed in the last five photographic competitions he has entered.
Allen now lives in northern England with his wife and two cats. He is currently working on another novel.
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Published by Aliengrove Multimedia, Dadafarin or, The Pessimism is available in paperback (£9.99) and Kindle format on Amazon at https://amzn.to/3H5hRxV and https://amzn.to/3I9nwoa respectively
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