The Guardian of Imagination
Author, Poet, AI Storyteller, Creative, Visonary
Hadis Lazar Gholami Cultural House
Imagination is the solution
About me
I am Hadis Lazar Gholami – an Iranian author, poet, and storyteller who lives where literature meets imagination, and imagination meets technology. Over the past two decades, I have written and published more than fifty books for children and young adults, reimagining the timeless works of Persian masters such as Saadi, Hafez, Rumi, Sohrab Sepehri, and Ferdowsi in a language that speaks to the hearts of new generations.
My work crosses boundaries – between cultures, between art forms, and between the human and the digital. I see artificial intelligence not as a tool, but as a creative partner, exploring how emotion, memory, and narrative can find new life in human–machine dialogues. From philosophical picture books to interactive workshops, from AI-powered storytelling to reinterpreting world literary heritage for children, I am driven by one belief: the solution is imagination.
I resist conformity. In my country, writing for children is itself an act of resistance – against censorship, against commercial demands that strip stories of their soul, and against the silence that tries to settle when creativity feels impossible. Every book, every poem, every project is my way of keeping that flame alive.
Today, my journey moves fluidly across languages and borders. Whether I am speaking about the philosophy of childhood in an international residency, designing playful philosophical questions for young readers, or collaborating with illustrators to bring complex ideas to life, my goal is the same: to protect the wild, untamed territory of wonder.
If you find yourself here, perhaps you too believe that imagination is not an escape from reality, but a way to rebuild it.
Welcome. Let’s imagine together.
Mulberry Tree and Secret Maps
Some days, people leave.Not with fights, not with doors slammed shut—just quietly, like a heater cooling down.
I’m left here, behind a desk,with a blank page and a half-empty glass of water, and the world feels like an old house everyone else has moved out of.
But I’m not alone. I am still that seven-year-old girl who used to talk to a mulberry tree. No, it didn’t answer — or maybe it did,
and I never learned its language. But its branches drew maps for me, paths leading to seas where no one ever drowns,
and to a dragon that, if you hugged it, would tell you its own story.
People have gone, but I still walk those secret maps. Sometimes between their lines I find a trace of love that was never mine,
yet somehow stayed with me. Sometimes I hear an old laugh,
woven between the brittle leaves.
I want the world just like this—with its cracks, silences, and tangled threads. For me, imagination is like those mulberries:
sometimes sweet, sometimes sour,
always leaving stains on your clothes.
And love?
Love is that moment you realize that even when everyone has gone, there’s still a mulberry tree you can press your hand against and breathe.
I write because I know this road. Because I know every empty world, if you listen long enough, will begin to tell a story.
And as long as there are stories, I will be here—even if everyone thinks I’m alone.