Solacers

"I have often wondered when a memory stops being a moment and becomes a companion.
Some memories visit quietly. Others arrive uninvited and rearrange the furniture of the mind.
There were years when I mistook silence for strength.
Years when I believed endurance meant never turning back to look at what had shaped me.
But memory is patient.
It waits.
And when it returns, it does not ask permission.
It simply stands at the door.
Survival is instinct.
Living is choice.
Somewhere between the two
I began to understand
that healing rarely arrives with ceremony.
It comes in fragments,
in small permissions,
in moments when you decide not to harden." Arion Golmakani
Raised without doctrine, guided by chance, and sustained by mercy.
This memoir chronicles the inner life of a boy who grows up without certainty—no home to return to, no faith to inherit, no guarantees to trust. What emerges instead is a quiet attentiveness to unseen forces: the moments, encounters, and brief mercies that alter paths and offer rescue without explanation.
Moving through the margins of Iran—foster homes, streets, military bases, classrooms, and strangers’ doorways—Alireza (Arion) Golmakani survives hunger, exile, discipline, and loss not by hardening, but by paying attention. From selling ice treats in Mashhad to finding unlikely refuge in cinema, poetry, and the rigor of naval life, he forges an inner compass untouched by dogma or despair.
This is a story of spirituality born not of belief, but of survival—of meaning without names, and resilience that remains tender.
Spare, lyrical, and deeply humane, this memoir is a testament to hope earned rather than promised, and to the quiet strength of those who learn to listen before they believe.
Perfect for readers of Educated, A Long Way Gone, and The Kite Runner, this is a rare and intimate portrait of becoming—told from the inside out.


Best Nonfiction Finalist, Stanford University Libraries, William Saroyan International Prize.

Moving memoirs every student should read. –OnlineCollege



"He was neither an orphan nor a street kid, but life dealt him such a hand that now, those who hear the story of his childhood in Iran, consider him an Oliver Twist in the streets of Mashhad. His childhood could be summarized in two words: Hunger and Forlorn.” –BBC

"If you devoured “The Glass Castle,” vividly remember “Angela's Ashes,” and were fascinated by “Destined to Witness,” if you loved the colorful descriptions, the oriental storytelling and the ornate language of Khaled Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner,” you will definitely get your money’s worth reading “Solacers,” by the American author Arion Golmakani." –Joke Brocker, Westfälische Nachrichten 

“Congratulation on writing such a first-class book.” –Dr. Ehsan Yarshater, Author of Encyclopedia Iranica, founder and director of The Center for Iranian Studies, and Emeritus Professor of Iranian Studies at Columbia University

"A story of hope, determination, and forgiveness, Solacers is a remarkable tale of resilience and optimism, with lessons for us all. Golmakani gives voice to children everywhere who long for nurturing and hunger for security." –Hans J. Massaquoi, retired managing editor of Ebony Magazine and the author of the best-selling book, Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany