The Konar and the Apple

Fun, Beauty, and Dread - From Ahwaz to California

By: Babak Hodjat

Narrated by: Babak Hodjat

“It’s all about the story.”

So begins Babak Hodjat’s collection of tales in The Konar and the Apple.

An eight-year-old boy assigned the task of throwing flowers during the Shah’s visit. A teenager in boot camp eager to catch episodes of a popular Japanese TV show. An adult coming to the United States, ready to make his mark in the tech world.

These are just some of the personal experiences shaping Hodjat’s intimate narrative of a boy growing up in post-revolutionary Iran. The stories paint a picture of a middle-class Westernized boy experiencing all the common - and uncommon - adventures of childhood and self-discovery.

Blending both humor and insight, The Konar and the Apple transcends culture to celebrate the fun, innocence, and anticipation of growing up that unite us all.

©2022 Babak Hodjat (P)2022 Babak Hodjat

Critic reviews

“We rarely learn the back stories of today’s technology leaders - but here Babak Hodjat eloquently, entertainingly, and compellingly recounts a coming-of-age journey through war, revolution...and love.” (David Rowan, founding editor in chief, Wired UK and author of Non-Bullshit Innovation)

Delightful and insightful

I very much enjoyed listening to this collection of Babak’s personal stories spanning decades with an impressively detailed narration highlighting how much our world has changed in recent times especially living in a country that has gone through some very drastic cultural shifts, a revolution and war. You get to intimately relive these strange and unsettling times through the eyes of an extraordinarily passionate, curious, observant and clever boy’s journey into adulthood. I was kind of sad when the book ended and wanted the stories to continue!

Inspiring book!

We really enjoyed this book as our night time reading. Even our 10 year old son loved reading it and learning about his parents motherland. The stories are so real, easy to read and interesting!
It is incredible the way children learn and inspire from stories! In the book there is a chapter where Babak describes a soccer board game that he created with his brother and his best friends, this was very interesting to my son and inspired him to create the board game himself and convinced us to play it with him too! And it is indeed a fun game to play!
Well done Babak!

Highly recommend!

Babak is a wonderful story teller, I loved listening to the book in his own voice. I appreciated learning about things that have happened in Iran from his personal perspective. Hearing the stories he so vividly recounts from childhood is amazing. The honesty in his stories is so relatable.

Brought back memories vividly

I am about 7 years younger than the author. Never met him but lived in the same neighborhood ‘Kooy’ during the war. We left for one month but returned to the same house and stayed there until 1987. All my childhood games were similar to this story. The arrow and bow and shooting it into the bike wheels was the most amazing game we played. Reviewing those memories was both sweet and bitter. Almost everyone I knew from that neighborhood is living outside of Iran now.