Monday, December 31, 2018

An Interview With Ahmad Amani

The Letterpress Project has asked authors and illustrators to think about what has inspired them as artists, what their favourite books are and how they relate to their audience - we've also asked them if they themselves are book collectors.

We are delighted to present an interview with the author Ahmad Amani. Ahmad lives in the Middle East and he is a graduate of the Art University in Tehran. He has worked for many newspapers in Iran and Iraq as a Kurdish journalist.

His books are stories about people, society, and culture. The books were written in a new concept and fantasy form and he hopes that his books make you think, while you enjoy them.
You can read what Ahmad had to tell us in his interview  below:




Monday, January 22, 2018

Math City by Ahmad Amani, illustrated by Mehdi Anoshivani

I am one of those many people who has a lifelong fear of mathematics brought about by some shockingly bad teaching at primary school that left me unprepared for the horrors of algebra, geometry and worse once I got to secondary school. I can still vividly remember the nightly tears as my dad tried patiently to help me understand my maths homework (he was unsuccessful). Despite trying extraordinarily hard, I failed my maths mock O’ Level exam and so, to everyone’s relief, I was not allowed to take the exam. I have so far managed to get through life without the qualification and am pretty certain that I would fail it again even today – some things are just not meant to be.  Given my problem, I approached this rather quirky young adult novella with some trepidation. The idea of living in something called ‘Math City’ sounded like my worst nightmare but perhaps reading about it might help me to feel more comfortable with the subject?