Ali Rad

Ali Rad’s childhood ended with the fall of the last Shah, while he witnessed the collapse of his homeland’s foundations. He came of age under a newly formed and volatile regime, his teenage years shadowed by upheaval and uncertainty. Drafted into the military, he endured the bitterness of war before devoting more than a decade to university, earning a doctorate in dentistry and professional specialization.

Alongside his orthodontic work, he taught and researched, practised architecture, designed software, launched ventures, and engaged in community outreach.

Everything changed at forty, when a sudden cardiac arrest reshaped his path and forced him to confront life’s fragility. Migration stripped away everything—material and spiritual—whether left behind in Iran or lost in transit. In eastern Canada, he had to start from nearly nothing.

Yet from this profound solitude, something rare emerged: a devotion to storytelling that gave him wings. Now a novelist, Ali transforms a lifetime of upheaval into stories that explore the courage to part, the will to let go, the ache of homesickness, the strength of resilience, and the timeless human search for meaning in loss and renewal.