The medal was coined on the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Resistance Literature Office of the Bureau, and was presented in the presence of the writer, narrator and several cultural figures.

Written by Seyyedeh Azam Hosseini, “Da” was published in 2008 and soon became an Iranian bestseller.

The novel contains recollections by Seyyedeh Zahra Hosseini of the time when the Iraqi army captured Khorramshahr in the early days of the Iran-Iraq war, which is known as the Sacred Defense in Iran.

Zahra Hosseini who is also a war veteran had earlier announced that she would not be able to attend the ceremony since she was hospitalized, but she managed to arrive at the end of the ceremony, MNA reported.

Hosseini first expressed her appreciation and said, “I thank God for all this kindness and God knows that from the beginning I intended to transfer the message of the martyrs+ oppression to the generation of today and nothing more.

“I felt indebted to this generation and that is why I published the book. So many readers called me and expressed their thoughts about the book which was interesting for me,” she remarked.

An-eight year old girl from Oraman region in Kurdistan was one of the youngest who had read the book, Hosseini said, adding  “when I met her, I told her this book is not suitable for someone your age, but she said that she had a hard life herself and told me how happy she was after reading the book. She said that she felt the book is honest and that she now knows the reason for coughs by the chemically-wounded war veterans.”

Hosseini continued that she had experienced and felt almost all the events narrated in the book and said, “It is not fair when some say the book is an infusion by the writer into me. The writer was only seven during the time of 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.”

“I am not feeling well these days and I have heard the book would reach its millionth edition someday, may be I will not be alive at that time but I hope more these types of books will be published, since our youth are waiting for the truth,” she stated.