Isaac & Iskandar

By Jono Borden

Subjects: Islam, rebellion, Middle East, sexuality, spirituality, politics, scandal, Judaism, adventure, Iran, poetry, masculinity

Description: (Verse Novel.) Abandoned by his media outlet while on assignment in a volatile, post-9/11 Tehran, Isaac—a Canadian correspondent covering Iran’s 2009 presidential election—flees the confines of Western complacency for the frontlines of an Eastern conflict; embracing chance as defiantly as the comfort he casts aside. At a crossroads in his life—and in the middle of nowhere, going anywhere fast—Isaac meets Iskandar, a rebel whose passion simultaneously liberates and subjugates. Forced to contemplate conquest, captivity, and sacrifice in this verse novel which interweaves their narratives, the two men and their differing worlds collide while exploring pleasure and all of the pain it brings; risking it all together, defiantly daring just to be. A modern epic which challenges readers to reassess their own fears and desires, Isaac and Iskandar’s is a love defying the law, proving the cost of freedom is more than an I for an I. *“His chutzpah is bracing, brazen. [He has what] one finds in Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Jimi Hendrix, and the words of other great, rock songsmiths. Dude’s got guts!”* —George Elliott Clarke, Poet Laureate of Toronto