by kaveh akbar.ys been fascinated by this event, and nobody in america knows about it. and one of the projects of the book is to give texture to, you know, you hear a number like 290 people were killed on board. if that number was 289 or 291, it wouldn't make a difference intellectually, right? for me, you know. 290 is a middle-large number. it's more than five, it's less than 10,000, right? every character in the book, their life is shaped by this event. their life is completely constructed around this event. jeffrey: akbar, whom we met at an event at a brooklyn public library, was himself born in iran to an iranian father and american mother and came to this country at age two, his family eventually settling in wisconsin. he teaches creative writing at the university of iowa, and has made a name for himself as a poet and poetry editor, including at "the nation" magazine. but a longer story began to swirl around in his head, and he gave himself a crash course in writing narrative. kaveh: and just th