A Persian translation of Mary Downing Hahn’s novel “Closed for the Season” has recently been published by the Peydayesh Publications in Tehran.
The book has been translated into Persian by Elaheh Moradi and Milad Babanejad.
Two friends set out to solve the years-old mystery of a murder, testing their friendship and placing them in danger, in this creepy thriller by suspense master Downing Hahn.
A pair of 13-year-old boys investigate the unsolved theft and murder that took place in the old house one boy’s family has just moved into. Their quest takes them to the highest and lowest levels of society in their small Maryland town, and eventually to a dark and derelict amusement park where someone will go to any length to shut down their investigation for good. Themes of adjusting to a new town, navigating complex friendships, and resisting a bully are deftly explored in this eerie page-turner.
Downing Hahn’s many acclaimed novels include such beloved ghost stories as “Wait Till Helen Comes”, “Deep and Dark and Dangerous”, and “Took”. A former librarian, she has received more than fifty child-voted state awards for her work. She lives in Columbia, Maryland.
“By the time my first novel was published, I was 41 years old. That’s how long it took me to get serious about writing. ‘The Sara Summer’ took me a year to write, another year to find a publisher, and yet another year of revisions before Clarion accepted it,” the writer has once said.
“Since Sara appeared in 1979, I’ve written an average of one book a year. If I have a plot firmly in mind when I begin, the writing goes fairly quickly. More typically, I start with a character or a situation and only a vague idea of what’s going to happen. Therefore, I spend a lot of time revising and thinking things out. If I’d paid more attention to the craft of outlining back in elementary school, I might be a faster writer, but, on the other hand, if I knew everything that was going to happen in a story, I might be too bored to write it down. Writing is a journey of discovery. That’s what makes it so exciting,” she says.
Photo: Front cover of the Persian translation of Mary Downing Hahn’s “Closed for the Season”.