Black Light is a voyage of discovery and transformation. Set in Iran, it tells the story of Jamshid, a quiet simple carpet mender, who one day suddenly commits a murder and is forced to flee. With this violent act his old life ends and a strange new existence begins.

Galway Kinnell combines his gift for precise imagery with a storyteller's skill in this journey across the Iranian desert—away from the fragile self–righteous virtues of adopted moral tradition, into the disorder and sexual confusion of agonizing self–knowledge. First published in 1966 by Houghton Mifflin, this extensively revised paperback edition of Black Light brings a distinguished novel back into print. "The writing is condensed, austere and effective . . . " –The Atlantic

"[Black Light] is poetic in its pared down language and precise sensuous imagery." –Times Literary Supplement

"Black Light shows that more poets should write novels... Running throughout the short novel is a landscape that feels both unforgiving and comforting that is mitigated by a quick moving and devastating tale of man trying to find peace in any form it will present itself in."—Spectrum Culture