Category Archives: Iranian

December 27, 2012 · 9:33 am

Equal of the Sun by Anita Amirrezvani

Equal of the Sun“Based on the life of Princess Pari Khan Khanoom” seems to be the dominant short-hand description (even on its own back cover) of Anita Amirrezvani‘s historical novel set in 16th-century Persia, now modern Iran. Some might find that description misleading, and expect this to be Princess Pari’s story, told in Pari’s voice. The narrative actually belongs to her chief eunuch and advisor, Javaher, who Amirrezvani reveals in the “Author’s Note” is one of several “invented characters.” Lest you feel deprived, don’t: Javaher makes for an excellent protagonist (especially as voiced by a perennial audible favorite, Simon Vance). He takes immediate control with the very first words – “I swear to you …” – as he declares his unwavering intention to “set down the truth about the princess.” He explains, “As Pari’s closest servant, I not only observed her actions but carried out her orders. I realized that upon my death, everything I know about her would disappear if I failed to document her story.”

Scant documentation survives about Princess Pari who was the favored daughter of Tahmasb Shah (1514-1576), the second ruler of the Safavi dynasty which reigned over one of the most significant Persian empires. In Sun, the few known major events of Pari’s royal existence are a vehicle for Javaher to share his enthralling, detail-laden experiences – and Amirrezvani makes exceptional use her fictional freedom – both inside the carefully-guarded harem and considerably beyond the palace gates.

Javaher joins Pari’s service, personally chosen by the revered, celebrated Shah. In order to prove his loyalty to the same royal court that accused and executed his father on distorted charges, Javaher has shockingly emasculated himself as a young man – much later than his fellow eunuchs who were made so in early boyhood. Javaher is determined to reclaim both his shattered family’s honor … and their former power. When the Shah dies unexpectedly without naming his chosen heir, Pari (and much of the court) knows that as his favored protegé, she is by far the best prepared, most knowing successor … if only she were not a woman. More and more, Pari’s brilliant, dangerous machinations rely on Javaher’s silence, his devotion, his intelligence, and his access to outside connections.

Because this is Javaher’s story, Sun moves beyond his royal service with intriguing subplots that include his personal quest to seek revenge on his father’s accuser, his determination to save his younger sister from their greed-driven aunt, and (with enough detail to make one blush at least a few shades of grey) his surprising romantic liaisons (birth control measures not required). Untethered by recorded facts, Amirrezvani’s fictional hero is a fascinating creation, fully aware of his Machiavellian choices, unbending in his determination to succeed: “If this book were discovered by the wrong man, I could be executed, for I have committed monstrous deeds and made mistakes that I would prefer not to reveal – although what man hasn’t?” he muses. “Man is flawed by his very nature. His ears hear only what they wish; God alone knows the absolute truth.” Amen to that.

Readers: Adult

Published: 2012

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November 29, 2012 · 11:19 am

The Rose Hotel: A True-Life Novel by Rahimeh Andalibian

In the genre of memoirs (which includes based-on-a-true-story, autobiographical novels), I’ve noticed two distinct categories: the titles you read for the importance of the story, and the memoirs that also turn out to be fabulous examples of great literature. Psychologist Rahimeh Andalibian‘s writing debut represents the former; that said, so little is known Stateside beyond the fear-inducing headlines about the Middle East that a personal account of one family’s experiences is a welcome, humanizing addition to any library.

In the holy city of Mashhad – the second largest in Iran after Tehran – Andalibian and her family lived in luxury in her father’s hotel. “The Rose Hotel and I shared a rare destiny: I was born the day my Baba’s grand hotel opened.” As the only daughter of a devout, wealthy Muslim family, Andalibian grew up both privileged and protected.

The events leading up to the 1979 Iranian Revolution – marked by the creation of an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Khomeini after overthrowing Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi –  too soon destroys the family’s comfortable life. Trouble literally arrives in the hotel’s entrance when Andalibian’s father is asked to imprison, then is later forced to employ, two young men who are known rapists, who allegedly repent their vicious crimes. “If only Baba had never allowed the Ayatollah to turn his hotel into a prison; if only Maman had not relented …,” Andalibian, who was just 4 at the time, writes in hindsight decades later.

Tragedy begets tragedy: Andalibian’s eldest brother runs away and is arrested by an unforgiving regime. The family seeks impossible assistance to reclaim their son, moving from refuge to refuge throughout Iran and beyond. Their scattered lives converge temporarily in London, until what is initially presented as a vacation to California becomes a permanent move.

Beliefs are challenged, morals as twisted, fortunes are lost and made and lost again, and most painful of all, multiple family schisms cause irreparable damage. In the midst of neverending chaos, well-intended lies, and wrenching tragedy, Andalibian comes of age caught between the stifling traditions of a world long gone, and the young adult’s need to push boundaries and establish independence. She mourns, falters, grieves, hopes, celebrates, and – clearly helped by committing 33 years of what she has “questioned, listened, and investigated” to the page – finds self-acceptance and peace.

As literary narrative, Hotel suffers especially from uneven pacing, moving from too much information to sudden gaps; the writing wavers, too, between overly simplistic and unnecessarily florid. Having decided to call it a ‘novel’ – clearly marked on the book’s cover – Andalibian seemingly gave herself room to mold and shape her story. Making a few further adaptations to her experiences would undoubtedly have resulted in a better novel. Once begun, however, the pages will keep turning; like a train wreck, averting the eyes from Andaliban’s ‘you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up’-life story proves nearly impossible.

Readers: Adult

Published: 2012

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November 17, 2012 · 11:47 am

Good Night, Commander by Ahmad Akbarpour, illustrated by Morteza Zahedi, translated by Shadi Eskandani and Helen Mixter

Award-winning Iranian writer Ahmad Akbarpour uses the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988, claiming 1.5 million lives) as the backdrop for this indelible, meaningful story about a young boy who lost his mother – and his leg. “The story is set in Iran,” Akbarpour explains in his author’s note, “But it could be the story of any child in any country where a war is fought for economic, strategic, ideological or other reasons, and in the end leaves everyone far worse off than they were before, especially the innocent victims.”

Alas, the world never seems to have a shortage of deadly conflicts … and no one suffers more than children: if they manage to survive death and destruction, they will have to live the longest with the tragic consequences. Children in war zones are forced to grow up far too early, and need ways to process their trauma. Those who are blessed to be war-free throughout their youth, would do well with exposure to age-appropriate materials that bring awareness of alternatives to intolerance, violence, hate, and body counts.

In the midst of playing alone in his room, a young boy is interrupted by his father, and reminded to remove his prosthetic leg when at home because “[i]t makes a lot of noise and you might damage it.” He does so reluctantly and resumes his game, determined that he “‘… will avenge [his mother’s] death!’” The boy is the titular ‘Commander’ – fighting invisible foes and their land mines, grenades, and injured screams. His only break is a call to the dinner table, where his father, grandmother, aunts, and uncles have gathered to celebrate his father’s upcoming remarriage.

While the Commander replays his terrifying memories – as if repetition might somehow dull the tragedy – life for the rest of his family moves on. Now faced with a major change – a “new mother”! – the Commander works harder than ever seeking justice for his own beloved late mother. Yet when his imagination places him face-to-face with another motherless soldier boy missing his leg, the Commander doesn’t shoot, but instead allows his imaginary enemy to borrow his prosthetic leg “only for tonight.” He calls a cease-fire, initially ashamed, but then his mother commends him from her picture on the wall: “‘Congratulations, Commander. I’m proud of you.’”

Akbarpour’s illustrator, fellow Iranian Morteza Zahedi, channels the stick figures common in toddlers’ drawings, adding hauntingly detailed expressions especially on the face of the young boy. The result is chillingly effective, the boy’s unfiltered insight a sobering reminder of how children clearly comprehend the world around them. Thanks to the great wisdom of the world’s youngest citizens, the promise of peace looms.

Readers: Children

Published: 2005, 2010 (United States)

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Filed under ..Children/Picture Books, .Fiction, .Translation, Iranian

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October 13, 2012 · 12:55 pm

That Night’s Train by Ahmad Akbarpour, translated by Majid Saghafi, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault

Banafsheh, a blue-eyed little girl aged 5, is traveling with her grandmother one night on a train, and notices a young woman sitting across from them reading a book. “If my mother were alive, she would be reading a book, too,” she thinks longingly to herself.

The reader, who turns out to be both a writer and a teacher, puts aside her book and quickly develops a friendship with the little girl. Before the young woman alights at her stop, she assures a delighted Banafsheh that she will call and visit the coming Friday. Alas, the young woman breaks her promise, and even the return of Banafsheh’s father who comes home bearing storybooks to share aloud, cannot cheer the disappointed little girl.

While Banafsheh waits, the young woman presents her story-in-progress about her night train reveries to her fifth-graders, asking for their opinions and predictions for what might happen next in her developing narrative. “‘Don’t be afraid to say whatever is on your minds,’” she tells her students. The more she discusses the possible outcome, the more she realizes she needs to see the little girl …

Into a simple story about childhood disappointment and saving redemption, Ahmad Akbarpour, winner of the Iranian National Book Award, weaves a layered treatise on the nature of storytelling when so-called reality and the writer’s imagination overlap, merge, and diverge. The young woman encourages her students to dramatically enhance the story-thus-far by inventing surprising twists and turns. And yet the young woman is absolutely startled when she receives a heartfelt letter from one of her book’s readers who feels she’s been misrepresented by one of the young woman’s characters.

Meanwhile, Banafsheh can only look upon the young woman’s scribbled sheets which hold her work-in-progress with wariness and distrust. Akbarpour then adds yet another meta-layer with his closing “Author’s Note” which details his own experience teaching a “Story Writing for Children class in the summer of 1997″ – not unlike the young woman’s class – during which a blue-eyed second-grader named Banafsheh insists she doesn’t “… even like the Banafsheh in the story.’”

Reading and writing both become their own characters in Akbarpour’s sly prose, as he blends and blurs what might be real-life characters with their unreliable narrators to create quite the literary adventure. Younger audiences will have one sort of experience, we oldsters will certainly have another. Shouldn’t even the simplest stories always be so exciting?

Readers: Middle Grade, Young Adult

Published: 2012 (United States)

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March 5, 2012 · 12:44 pm

Zahra’s Paradise by Amir & Khalid

“The authors have chosen anonymity for obvious political reasons.” When you know something like that about a book – that lives were willing to be risked to get a story out – how could you possibly not read it? In the case of Zahra’s Paradise, I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Written by Persian activist/journalist/documentary maker Amir and illustrated by Arab artist Khalil making his graphic novel debut, Zahra’s Paradise began as an online serial webcomic. In the name of worldwide access, the series was released simultaneously in English, Farsi, Arabic, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Korean, Hebrew, Portuguese, German, Swedish, and Finnish. The story – set in the aftermath of Iran’s contested June 2009 presidential elections that declared incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad victor – was considered that important. Now with Iran back in near-daily headlines, the urgency to read Zahra’s Paradise grows ever stronger.

The book opens with a gruesome prologue that will be alluded to again and again throughout the coming pages: a brutal father forces his young son to witness the monstrous destruction of a litter of newborn puppies. In the prologue’s ending panels, the butchered, bagged remains sink down in a watery burial: “Now you too are in the stream touched by all that’s still and waiting. A lost generation buried inside the eye of this blog. Zahra’s Paradise.”

“[T]his blog” is the work of a young man named Hassan desperately searching for his younger brother, Mehdi Alavi, who disappeared from Freedom Square (the irony!) while protesting the outcome of the Iran’s elections. From June 16 to August 19, 2009, Hassan records his family’s desperate search via the technological tools remarkably still available to him – his phone camera, his computer, the internet – first for Mehdi himself, and then, as time passes, any news of Mehdi at all. Hassan and his mother beg, demand, even call in dangerous favors to work through a labyrinthine system of hospitals, prisons, government offices, the morgue, and even the cemetery just outside Iran’s capital city of Tehran known as Zahra’s Paradise, named after the prophet Mohammad’s daughter. What Hassan is able to unveil is worse than any nightmare …

That the resulting panes make for an unforgettable story might be enough, but that so much of this graphic fiction is indeed fact is a sobering, outrageous slap of reality. The creators use a “composite of real people and events,” supported by an appendix-like 40+ pages at volume’s end they label “Glossary” that serves as historical record. Most haunting are those final 13 pages of names – real, true, once-living brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents – that make up the “citizens of a silent city named Omid (‘hope’ in Persian).” Printed in near-blinding tiny type, these names are an ultimate reminder to “[l]et them challenge our conscience so that in the future we will prevent this kind of tragedy from happening again.”

Readers: Young Adult, Adult

Published: 2011

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April 28, 2009 · 1:21 pm

Santa Claus in Baghdad and Other Stories about Teens in the Arab World by Elsa Marston

Santa Claus in BaghdadEight stories about eight teens from eight different countries coming of age during a time of uncertainty and tumult in their native Middle East countries. In the title story, young Amal of Baghdad, Iraq, must find the very best gift for her departing literature teacher even while watching as her family’s already depleted resources continue to dwindle. In “Faces,” Suhayl of Syria comes to terms with his parents’ divorce, desperately hoping to make his mother happy once again.

Aneesi watches in horror when her beloved father is accused of theft in the wealthy Lebanese home in which they both work in “The Hand of Fatima.” When Mujahhid is sent away from Bethlehem and the constant shootings that already claimed his older brother’s life to stay with relatives in a remote village in “The Olive Grove,” he learns new ways of struggling for his people’s rights against the controlling Israelis without having to become yet another martyr.

An Egyptian city girl learns first hand about village life in “In Line,” a young Tunisian boy who sells his mother’s hats befriends a famous artist in “Scenes in a Roman Theater,” two brave girls in Jordan help save another from an honor killing in “Honor,” and a young Palestinian boy living in a refugee camp in Lebanon helps his isolated older brother possibly find real love.

While the circumstances of these young lives might first seem unfamiliar to a western audience, universal truths about what all children want soon emerge. Differences that all too often get magnified by the media fall away as the children in these pages come of age, sharing their lives with friends, dealing with the occasional conflict with parents, and trying to fit into their communities – all the while surviving war, deprivation, political uncertainty, and imminent dangers.

Readers: Middle Grade, Young Adult

Published: 2008

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Filed under ..Middle Grade Readers, ..Young Adult Readers, .Fiction, .Short Stories, Arab, Iranian, Iraqi, Lebanese, Middle Eastern, Palestinian

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May 1, 2007 · 7:34 am

Author Interview: Marjane Satrapi

persepolisMarjane Satrapi on the “Axis of Evil,” Cheese, and Exploring Family History

Marjane Satrapi changed my reading life. Before I picked up Persepolis, her fabulous autobiographical debut about growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, I had little clue what graphic novels were. Sure, I had seen some of the manga books filled with too-cute, overly round-eyed characters, but I was convinced those were just for kids. I hadn’t moved beyond the image of Marvel comics – Superman, Spiderman, Archie and Veronica – and that was the extent of my knowledge.

When Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood first appeared stateside in April 2003, it was already a major bestseller in France, where it was originally published – which is also where Satrapi has lived for the last 13 years. Satrapi’s deceptively simple black-and-white images, paired with her candid dialogue bubbles, speak volumes. Her stark comics depict her life as an outspoken young girl living a bewildered existence in Tehran amidst political and social turmoil, protected by her nurturing, liberal parents. The great-granddaughter of a Persian emperor, Satrapi recalls her temporary stint as a 6-year-old prophet for a god who happens to resemble Karl Marx, and remembers her beloved uncle who was murdered by the “authorities.”  …[click here for more]

Author interview: The Bloomsbury Review, May/June 2007

Readers: Young Adult, Adult

Published: 2003, 2005 (United States)

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June 27, 2003 · 5:37 pm

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi

Reading Lolita in TehranFor two years before she left Iran, Nafisi, a resigned university professor, spent almost every Thursday morning with seven of her favorite former female students, discussing Western classics in a secret book group. Nafisi draws a parallel between the young Lolita, who is coerced, denied, and ultimately overtaken by the oafish Humbert and the experience of Iranian women under the totalitarian regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Review: “New and Notable Books,” AsianWeek, June 27, 2009

Readers: Adult

Published: 2003

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May 30, 2003 · 4:25 pm

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi

persepolisAlready a bestseller in France, where it was first published, Satrapi’s achievement is capturing her childhood in spare comic book images that speak utter volumes. Satrapi, whose great grandfather was a Persian emperor, recalls her life as an outspoken young girl living a bewildered existence in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution with her Marxist parents, her beloved uncle who was murdered by the so-called authorities, and her God who resembles Karl Marx.

Click here to read my interview with Marjane Satrapi for The Bloomsbury Review.

Review: “New and Notable Books,” AsianWeek, May 30, 2003

Readers: Young Adult, Adult

Published: 2003 (United States)

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· 3:56 pm

The Bathhouse: A Novel by Farnoosh Moshiri

BathhouseVicious, harrowing, nightmare of a short novel about a 17-year-old girl arrested and imprisoned for her brother’s revolutionary activities during the fundamentalist takeover of Iran. Based on the lives of real women who survived such horrific, unintelligible experiences, this book makes us question our own all-too-comfortable existence.

Review: “New and Notable Books,” AsianWeek, May 30, 2009

Readers: Adult

Published: 2003

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