Kei Kianpoor

Hi!

Before the Islamic revolution in Iran, when I last saw him, my father told me stories of mythical and real Persian kings. Men who were generous, pious ... great warriors who conquered vast empires.

The stories really captured my imagination.

I left Iran as a little boy, two years before the revolution. My family was deeply affected by the Islamic Revolution. I never got to see my father and most of the rest of my family after I left.

The more "islamic" Iran became, the more people were executed and tortured, the more I would immerse myself in the old tales from far away. Soon, I was old enough to reread them all in the histories of Herotodus, Xenophon and incredible academics everywhere.

I always wondered why these stories were never shared with non-Iranians. To be honest, not even the Iranians know the best details of who these people were, what they did and how they impacted the world on the tectonic scale.

I always wanted to tell their story.

The misrepresentations of the Persians by the movies "The 300" and "Xerxes" added fuel to the fire. The truth is, the Persians and the Greeks, despite their wars had a huge amount of respect for each other and traded heavily. The east and the west were not divided at all. Alexander admired Cyrus and named himself a Persian king.

Most of all, Cyrus was a great warrior but also a kind human being who would free slaves, declare freedom of religion and implement an enlightened rule that would be the glue that would hold the Persian Empire together for centuries. He is the only non-Jewish messiah in the Old Testament.

It is also very important for the people in the middle east, to understand that human rights is not a neocolonial concept created by imperialists, to impose a western standard on their thoughts and laws. Human rights was something created in the Middle East, when Cyrus conquered Babylon (Baghdad). It has been the thread that bound Persians and their brothers of different ethnicities together in the region in the last 2500 years.

Cyrus is a culmination of a decade of work, not just by me but dozens of very talented artists, editors, history buffs and fans of Cyrus worldwide. This is his story. This is why I wrote it.

I sincerely hope you enjoy it and look forward to seeing your comments whether negative or positive.

Thank you.