Mehran Karimi Nasseri, Who Inspired ‘The Terminal,’ Dies in Paris Airport
Iranian author of the novel ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns,’ who was murdered in his country in 1979, at the age of 36
Iranian screenwriter and director Mehran Karimi Nasseri, who authored the epic love story ‘The Terminal,’ has died in Paris at the age of 36. He is the second Iranian to be killed by Islamic State (IS) suicide bombers in recent years.
Karimi Nasseri was born in 1961 in the southern city of Shiraz, where he attended school to become an engineer. Nasseri moved to Paris in 1993 to study filmmaking and screenwriting. After graduating, Nasseri became an art director in the French film industry. He was also a founding member of the Iran-based, filmmaking studio, Cinepois and was a member of the Iranian Writers and Cinema Association (IWCA).
In 1995, Nasseri published his first novel, “The Golden Door.” The story follows the rise and redemption of a young man in a small Iranian town. The novel won a National Book Award in 1995.
“The Golden Door” also went on to be made into a movie for Iranian audiences by Abbas Kiarostami in 1999.
The movie, written by Abbas Kiarostami, starred Noor Taghi as Nasseri, which was released in Iran in 2000.
Nasseri took his stage name Mehran Karimi in 1992, adding “Karimi” to his first name in tribute to the famous Persian poet and poetess, Hamzeh Khazai. Nasseri’s first novel, “The Golden Door,” was published under the name Mehran Karimi.
In 1998, Karimi Nasseri published a collection of short stories called “The Book of Dreams.” The collection was the first by any Iranian writer to be published in