Kourosh Tari

About

I was born in 1968 in Tehran, Iran.

My mother, a young Jewish girl, who had run away with a middle age Baha’i man (who had married twice before met my mother), needed no more 2 years to realize the harsh reality of life and find herself a single mom with two boys! I was the older one and my brother, Sean who is only 1 year younger than me.

My mother, by nature, an intellectual and compassionate woman and mother, read to us every night for at least an hour before we go to bed. From the stories of Torah and prophets of Israel to Jack London’s white fang and to Morrris Meterling’s philosophical books.

At age 6 I learned how to read and I was seven years old when I was able to write in Persian (Farsi)!!

I was 11 year old when the 1979 revolution happened and ever since then every memory has a deep and bitter sadness as an inseparable part of it.

War (with Iraq) broke out in 1980 and for the next 8 years, I lost friends one after another at war.

In 1991 I finished my bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and computer science and a year later I was kicked out by the authorities from a very prestigious master degree program (where only 4 people from the whole country could join) on the basis of my “Religious Confusions” !!!

After all I was living in a “Muslim country” that now has a “Muslim Government” and want to see only “Muslims” in its “Islamic universities”.

Drafted to two years of mandatory military service, I was released in 1995.

My Jewish mother, and “so called” Baha’i father became a source of trouble in a country, which is now more than ever a Muslim country. Both Jewish and Baha’i community in Iran are subject to persecution and all kinds of unjust and cruel laws.

Before I fled Iran in 2001, I wrote/translated more than 30 books in the fields of Mathematics, computer science, history and literature.

My long journey brought me to the US in 2001 and since then I live here.

I am grateful for all that America and Americans have offered to me. Above all my freedom.