KPU Surrey instructor’s novel about child soldiers in the Iran-Iraq war earns Giller Prize nod

When Nazanine Hozar was six, she watched the Iran-Iraq war unfold on the news. Propaganda videos showed child soldiers only a year or two older than her joining the army and marching into battle. “I couldn’t reconcile with the fact that children would be fighting, firing weapons and killing,” she said in a phone interview. The images left her wanting to understand the boys’ lives and why they became entangled in adults’ conflict. “It always stuck with me throughout my life … and that’s how The Small Ones came about.”

The novel follows a group of children who voluntarily join the 1980s Iran-Iraq war to “please their father and become heroes.” Their search for glory soon crumbles as they witness war’s destructive nature firsthand. They then set out to find safety and freedom.

Hozar’s second novel, The Small Ones, was published Sept. 29 and quickly shortlisted for the 2026 Giller Prize on Oct. 5. The other shortlisted books are Tara Gereaux’s Wild People Quiet, Michelle Good’s Eliza Sunshine, Nicholas Herring’s Your Breath in Charcoal and Patmeena Sabit’s Good People. The Giller Prize, Canada’s most lucrative literary award, recognizes excellence in long-form Canadian fiction or short stories. Notable past winners include Margaret Atwood in 1996 and Nobel laureate Alice Munro in 1998.

The Giller jury citation describes The Small Ones as “restrained in its telling yet expansive in its meaning” and says it transforms the experiences of children caught in conflict into an examination of sacrifice, power, survival and the enduring humanity of people society deems expendable.

Hozar teaches creative writing at KPU Surrey. Through the power dynamic between father figures and sons, she explores the steep cost of adult ambition for young relatives. The story shows how some men are willing to “sacrifice and subject their children to unimaginable things to achieve their own needs and desires.” Hozar said, “(When) powerful men are trying to attain more power, the people who suffer the most are children.”

In The Small Ones, children are “trapped innocently” in their elders’ warfare. Hozar says this resembles the current situation in Iran, where people are caught in the “crossfire” between Western powers and an oppressive domestic regime. “The people are desperate to get out of this predicament and attain freedom,” she said. “Yet from every angle, they’re being brutalized and bombarded.”

Born in Tehran, Hozar has maintained a close bond with Iranian culture since moving to Canada in childhood. Storytelling is a lifelong passion, which she pursues through theatre, playwriting and screenwriting. She finds novel writing comes most naturally and names Toni Morrison and James Baldwin as favourite authors and inspirations. “Like the nature of a fish to swim, it’s the nature of a fiction writer to create stories.”

Hozar’s debut novel, Aria, was also well received by critics and the public, and was shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. Margaret Atwood called it “a Doctor Zhivago of Iran.” Both Aria and The Small Ones repeatedly explore the harrowing impact of war on children through their own lens.

“I think compassion and empathy are the only way forward,” Hozar said, commenting on rising divisions in ideologies, religions and belief systems that are driving humanity toward war and destruction. “As long as we’re able to see human beings for their humanity and their right to live how they want without restricting the rights of others, that is the goal of all human beings.”