Arak, Iran
Kader Abdolah studied physics in Arak College of Science (today's Arak university) in Arak, Iran and graduated in 1977. After graduation he served his mandatory military service at Iranian Navy in Bandar Pahlavi (today's Bandar-e-Anzali) During the revolution he joined the left-wing movement opposing the Shah – and later the Khomeini – regimes. He fled to the Netherlands as a political refugee in 1988. In 2006 he was writer in residence at Leiden University. Today he lives in Delft, writing under a pseudonym composed of the names of two executed friends.