A Persian Requiem is a powerful and evocative novel. Set in the southern Persian town of Shiraz in the last years of World War II, when the British army occupied the south of Persia, the novel chronicles the life of Zari, a traditional, anxious and superstitious woman whose husband, Yusef, is an idealistic feudal landlord. The occupying army upsets the balance of traditional life and throws the local people into conflict. Yusef is anxious to protect those who depend upon him and will stop at nothing to do so. His brother, on the other hand, thinks nothing of exploiting his kinsmen to further his own political ambitions. Thus a web of political intrigue and hostilities is created, which slowly destroys families. In the background, tribal leaders are in open rebellion against the government, and a picture of a society torn apart by unrest emerges.In the midst of this turbulence, normal life carries on in the beautiful courtyard of Zari's house, in the rituals she imposes upon herself and in her attempt to keep the family safe from external events. But the corruption engendered by occupation is pervasive - some try to profit as much as possible from it, others look towards communism for hope, while yet others resort to opium. Finally even Zari's attempts to maintain normal family life are shattered as disaster strikes.An immensely moving story, A Persian Requiem is also a powerful indictment of the corrupting effects of colonialism.A Persian Requiem, published in 1969 in Iran, was the first novel written by an Iranian woman and, sixteen reprints and half a million copies later, it remains the most widely read Persian novel. In Iran it helped shape the ideas and attitudes of a generation in its revelation of the factors that contributed to the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Published here in a different translation under the Persian title Savushun, it is now available in the original English translation by Roxane Zand.Simin Daneshvar was born into a provincial, middle-class family in Shiraz in 1921, and educated at a missionary school and later at Tehran University. The comparatively relaxed political environment of the forties in Iran led her to choose journalism as her first career, and she began writing fiction at the same time. She subsequently married Jalal Al-e Ahmad, the leading Iranian intellectual and writer, received her doctorate from Tehran University and won a Fulbright scholarship to Stanford University. Upon her return to Iran she became an associate professor of art history at Tehran University. She was an articulate and outspoken lecturer and her promotion was hindered by Savak, the secret police.After her husband's untimely death in 1969, Daneshvar assumed a leading role in the Writer's Association which he had helped found and she provided moral support for intellectuals opposing the Shah's regime. After the Revolution in 1979, she retired from her University post. Since then, she has kept a low profile while continuing to write fiction and remaining deeply committed to her life-long concern with women and their role in Iranian society.

A Persian Requiem

Literature & Fiction

Daneshvar, Simin

Contemporary

George Braziller

Chronicles the life of Zari, the wife of a feudal landlord, as she attempts to preserve her family amidst the turbulence of the British occupation of southern Persia during World War II

Twenty-six-year-old college graduate, artist, and employee of the Ministry of Art and Culture, Hasti Nourian aspires to be a “new woman”—independent-minded, strong-willed, and in control of her own destiny. A destiny that includes Morad, an idealistic young architect and artist with whom Hasti is deeply in love. Morad is a sharp critic of Iran’s Westernized bourgeois class, the one that Hasti’s mother relishes. After Hasti’s father died, her mother had married a wealthy businessman and moved to an exclusive neighborhood of northern Tehran. Socializing with a mixed group of Americans, English-speaking Iranians, and British expats, her mother’s life revolves around gym visits, hairdressers, and party planning. When her mother persuades Hasti to join her at the spa, she introduces her to Salim, an eligible young man from a wealthy family whose British education and proper comportment, as well as his economic status, make him an ideal suitor for Hasti in her mother’s eyes. Against her better judgment, Hasti finds herself attracted to Salim and tempted by her mother’s comfortable lifestyle. As the novel unfolds, Hasti is torn between her first love and the radical politics of her university friends, and her love for her mother and the freedom economic security can bring. Set in Tehran in the mid-1970s, just a few years before the 1977–79 revolution, Daneshvar’s unforgettable novel depicts the tumultuous social, cultural, and economic changes of the day through the intimate story of a young woman’s struggle to find her identity.

Island of Bewilderment: A Novel of Modern Iran (Middle East Literature In Translation)

Literary

Syracuse University Press

In this rich collection of short stories, Daneshvar captures the essence of a rich traditional culture undergoing change: A child lost in a bazaar, a young woman who forsakes her husband, children, and home just to own a car, a traditional theater where the play and the players act on many levels, a colonel's allegience passing from the Shah to Khomeini, an old woman's memories, and a moving chronicle of the final days of Jalal Al-e Ahmad, the author's husband. Simin Daneshvar draws from over a thousand years of Persian storytelling tradition and combines this with modern techniques of short fiction and cinema. The result is both entertaining and a key of uncompromising honesty, rich detail, and a dazzling range of voices that guides the reader into the center of a complex society and its concerns.

Daneshvar's Playhouse (English and Persian Edition)

Danishvar, Simin

Short Stories & Anthologies

Mage Publishers

"A very engaging saga..." Washington Post Book World; "A powerfully resonant work.." Publishers Weekly; "Outstanding foreign fiction..." USA Today. Savushun (pronounced "sa-voo-shoon") is a folk tradition, surviving in Southern Iran from an undateable pre-islamic past, that conjures hope in spite of everything. The novel chronicles the life of a Persian family during the World War II Allied occupation of Iran. It is set in Shiraz, a town which evokes images of Persepolis and pre-islamic monuments, the great Persian poets, the shrines, sufis and nomadic tribes all within a historical web of the interests, privilege and influence of foreign powers, corruption, incompetence and arrogance of persons in authority. The story is seen through the eyes of Zari, a young wife, and mother, who copes with her idealistic husband while struggling with her desire for traditional family life and her need for an individual identity. simin daneshvar lives and continues to write in Iran.

Savushun: A Novel About Modern Iran (Persian Classics)

Ghanoonparvar, M.R.

Mage Publishers, Incorporated

Six stories portray a world full of injustice and cruel surprise redeemed by hope and acts of kindness

Sutra & Other Stories

Javadi, Hasan

Neshati, Amin

Simin Daneshvar

Hasan Javadi

The Israeli Republic "suggests how the Iranian and Israeli leaders who feel such intense mutual hostility today actually mirror one another in certain ways, particularly in their foundational attitudes toward religious authority, political and economic populism and the West. That a writer such as Al-e Ahmad, guru to the ayatollahs, liked Israel now seems touching. What he liked about Israel seems cautionary." —Bernard Avishai, Foreign Affairs Written by a preeminent Iranian writer who helped lay the popular groundwork for the Iranian Revolution, The Israeli Republic should be required reading for anyone interested in the history and current political landscape of the Middle East. Documenting Jalal Al-e Ahmad’s two-week-long trip to Israel in February of 1963, his account “Journey to the Land of Israel” caused a firestorm when it was published in Iran, upsetting the very revolutionary clerics whose anti-Western sentiments Al-e Ahmad himself had fueled. Yet, in the thriving Jewish State, Jalal Al-e Ahmad saw a model for a possible future Iran. Based on his controversial travelogue, supplemented with letters between the author and his wife, Simin Daneshvar (the first major Iranian woman novelist), and translated into English for the first time, The Israeli Republic is a record of Al-e Ahmad’s idealism, insight, and ultimate disillusionment toward Israel. Vibrantly modern in its sensibility and fearlessly polemical, this book will change the way you think about the Middle East.

The Israeli Republic: An Iranian Revolutionary's Journey to the Jewish State

History

Avishai, Bernard

Al-e Ahmad, Jalal

Middle East

Restless Books

Set in the southern Persian town of Shiraz in the last years of World War II with the British army in occupation, the novel chronicles the life of Zari, a traditional, anxious, and superstitious woman whose husband, Yusef is an idealistic feudal landlord. A web of political intrigue and hostility is created. In the background, tribal leaders are in open rebellion against the government and British occupation. In the midst of this turbulence Zari carries on normal life within the beautiful courtyard of her house, attempting to keep the family safe from external events. The corruption engendered by occupation is pervasive as Zari's family life is shattered and disaster strikes. An immensely moving story, the novel is a powerful indictment of colonization.

Genre Fiction

Halban Publishers

Suvashun (Clasicos De La Diversidad) (Spanish Edition)

Ediciones El Cobre

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