Like most stories pertaining to the Sacred Defense (in reference to the Iran-Iraq war), Autumn in the Train has also been authored based on ideas that are rooted in the truth. Mazinani himself has said about the story that he was inspired to write it when he watched a story on the news. The news story showed the mother whose son had been martyred during the war and at the same times she got the news of her son’s death and when it was spreading through their village, it was also heard that the horse of the family has died. Employing this as the base of his story, Mazinani crafts a story in which the emotional points of view of an animal and humans are explored in a backdrop of war. In this novel, he has tried to create a work that is unlike other works written in Iran with a similar subject matter and that is why he has opted for a different style of narration. Mazinani starts his story by picturing a rural fam-ily whose youngest son is fighting in the trenches and narrates his story through the mind of the family and their tame animal. This book is a depiction of joys and sorrows of a family, showing the exclusive elements that shape an Iranian family including their emotional attachments and personal relationships. Even though the novel has been written for a young adult target audience and so the author could have used various time and space jumps to add to the attraction of his work for readers of this age, he has instead opted not to exit the backdrop of rural living and narrate his story of war from the point of view of a small society in order to avoid clichés that exist when it comes to writing a war story.

Mohammad Kazem Mazinani (1963-Damqan) author of works for children and young adults and these days the famous writer of stories targeted at the adult population.Mazinani’s first professional endeavor took shape in Children’s Keihan and after that, from 1993 to 1995 he started creating works for young adults in Hamshahri newspaper and etched away for other publications too. His first work came out in 1987 in the form of poetry for the younger generation and the last of them was Ah Ba Shin which was met with success and took home prizes such the Enqelab Festival of Story-telling award, Shahid Ghanipour literary award and the Jalal Al-e-Ahmad lit-erary award. Mazinani’s career boasts significant wins such as the Book of the Year award, Fajr International Poetry Festival award, Iranian Press award, Book Festival of Roshd award and other Iranian awards. 53 of his works have been published so far.