Orth, Stephan "Couchsurfing in Iran"

Orth, Stephan "Couchsurfing in Iran: Revealing a Hidden World" (German: Couchsurfing im Iran - Meine Reise hinter verschlossene Türen) - 2015

After reading Stephan Orth's book about Couchsurfing in Russia, I decided I really wanted to read his other books on this subject. He has been travelling through China, Iran and Saudi Arabia (Saudi-Arabien) so far. I still need to get his next book but the others have all been just as great as the first one.

What I love about his book is that we can take a little glimpse into the life of normal people in countries where most of us couldn't even travel as tourists. And he gets to know the "ordinary" people there. Well, as far as you can call those people "normal" who open up their homes to total strangers even though it is forbidden by their regime.

The author has a great way of describing his hosts and their friends and family, their lives, their dreams, just everything. You almost have the feeling you've been there yourself. I have read books about the Iran before and heard a lot about it through various eyes, this is yet another one who gives me an insight into this interesting people.

I have read a few reviews by Iranians who said how accurate his telling about their country is. That's very promising.

Thank you, Stephan Orth, for giving us the insight into a country that is a mystery for most of us and that we definitely can't see at the moment, especially due to all the Covid restrictions.

From the back cover:

"In Couchsurfing in Iran, award-winning author Stephan Orth spends sixty-two days on the road in this mysterious Islamic republic to provide a revealing, behind-the-scenes look at life in one of the world’s most closed societies. Experiencing daily the 'two Irans' that coexist side by side - the 'theocracy, where people mourn their martyrs' in mausoleums, and the 'hide-and-seekocracy, where people hold secret parties and seek worldly thrills instead of spiritual bliss' - he learns that Iranians have become experts in navigating around their country’s strict laws. Getting up close and personal with locals, he covers more than 5,000 kilometers, peering behind closed doors to uncover the inner workings of a country where public show and private reality are strikingly opposed."

Khorsandi, Shappi "A Beginner's Guide to Acting English"

Khorsandi, Shappi "A Beginner's Guide to Acting English" - 2009

Since I don't live in England anymore, I can't go and see stand-up comedians live. But there are panel shows and quiz shows and other shows where they appear as hosts etc. So, this is how I got to know Shappi Khorsandi. She comes across as a lovely person, very funny, very comical. When I learned that she had written a book about coming to England as a three-year-old, I was very interested. I imagined it to be just as nice and funny as the author herself.

I was not disappointed. This book doesn't just tell us how it is to grow up in a strange country, it tells us a lot about Iran, as well. And not just about the politics but about the ordinary family life. How they lived under the Shah, how they lived after the revolution. And with her hints about how her parents were different from English parents, I also learned a lot about Iranian culture.

It's not a hilarious book but you can see where Shappi Khorsandi gets her sense of humour. It certainly is one of the best memoirs I have ever read. You get to know both the author and her entire family very well, you get to fear with them and mourn with them, laugh with them and love with them.

I also had the chance to compare how the Khorsandi family lived in England as foreigners and how we lived in England as foreigners. Two very different worlds. Granted, it was not exactly the same place and some twenty years later but we never really felt "foreign" or weren't treated as such. Someone told me that's because we spoke English and "fitted in" but I'm sure there are some more reasons behind that. In any case, I'm happy that the Khorsandis could make England their home and that their daughter became such a great comedian.

I loved this so much, I've already ordered her next book "Nina is not okay".

From the back cover:

"When you're young just growing up seems hard enough. But if you've been shipped to a news country, away from all your beloved aunts and uncles, where you can't understand anyone it's even harder. And if the Ayatollah wants you and your family dead, then that's when it gets really tricky …

This is a story of growing up a stranger in a strange land with fish fingers and kiss chase and milk and biscuits. But it's also a story about exile, survival, and families - wherever they are."

Kermani, Navid "Between Quran and Kafka"

Kermani, Navid "Between Quran and Kafka: West-Eastern Affinities" (German: Zwischen Koran und Kafka. West-östliche Erkundungen) - 2014

Navid Kermani is a German author with Iranian parents. He is an Orientalist and received the renowned Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 2015 and this is my second book I read by him. The first one, "Dein Name" [Your name] has not been translated into English (yet!) but this one has.

A rather interesting approach to both Islam and German writers, both classic and modern from someone who has a great knowledge about both. Even if you don't know anything about either, Navid Kermani gets you closer to them. This certainly is a book that gets you thinking.

He also includes some great speeches he was invited to give at certain official German and Austrian events, like the celebration of 65 years of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (German constitution). All of them highly interesting.

From the back cover:

"What connects Shiite passion plays with Brecht s drama? Which of Goethe's poems were inspired by the Quran? How can Ibn Arabi s theology of sighs explain the plays of Heinrich von Kleist? And why did the Persian author Sadeq Hedayat identify with the Prague Jew Franz Kafka?

One who knows himself and others will here too understand: Orient and Occident are no longer separable: in this new book, the critically acclaimed author and scholar Navid Kermani takes Goethe at his word. He reads the Quran as a poetic text, opens Eastern literature to Western readers, unveils the mystical dimension in the works of Goethe and Kleist, and deciphers the political implications of theatre, from Shakespeare to Lessing to Brecht. Drawing striking comparisons between diverse literary traditions and cultures, Kermani argues for a literary cosmopolitanism that is opposed to all those who would play religions and cultures against one another, isolating them from one another by force. Between Quran and Kafka concludes with Kermani s speech on receiving Germany s highest literary prize, an impassioned plea for greater fraternity in the face of the tyranny and terrorism of Islamic State.

Kermani s personal assimilation of the classics gives his work that topical urgency that distinguishes universal literature when it speaks to our most intimate feelings. For, of course, love too lies between Quran and Kafka."

Navid Kermani received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis) in 2015.

Maalouf, Amin "Samarcande"

Maalouf, Amin "Samarkand" (French: Samarcande) - 1988

I think a lot of words just sound like paradise, dream words that take me to a magic place like from 1001 Nights: Samarkand is one of them. Doesn't it just make you think of mosques and minarets, oriental markets and blue tiled places?

Samarkand is written by Lebanese-born French author Amin Maalouf whose works are written in French. But a lot of it has been translated into English.

This novel takes us from the life of poet, mathematician and astronomer Omar Khayyám and his poetry collection Rubaiyat in Samarkand of the 11th century to the voyage of the fictional character Benjamin O. Lesage on the Titanic in 1912. I had never heard of Omar Khayyám and was happy to learn not just about his poetry but especially about his life and that of his contemporaries in an area that is as unknown to me and most people in Europe in that time as it is today. I have learned quite a few things about Persian and Muslim history.

Very well written account of a highly interesting topic. I loved this book.

I also really appreciated the map they had in the back showing the reader all the names of those far away places.

From the back cover:

"Accused of mocking the inviolate codes of Islam, the Persian poet and sage Omar Khayyam fortuitously finds sympathy with the very man who is to judge his alleged crimes. Recognising genius, the judge decides to spare him and gives him instead a small, blank book, encouraging him to confine his thoughts to it alone. Thus begins the seamless blend of fact and fiction that is Samarkand. Vividly re-creating the history of the manuscript of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Amin Maalouf spans continents and centuries with breathtaking vision: the dusky exoticism of 11th-century Persia, with its poetesses and assassins; the same country's struggles nine hundred years later, seen through the eyes of an American academic obsessed with finding the original manuscript; and the fated maiden voyage of the Titanic, whose tragedy led to the Rubaiyat's final resting place - all are brought to life with keen assurance by this gifted and award-winning writer."

Satrapi, Marjane "Persepolis. The Story of a Childhood" and "Persepolis. The Story of a Return"

Satrapi, Marjane "Persepolis. The Story of a Childhood" (French: Persepolis) - 2000 
Satrapi, Marjane "Persepolis. The Story of a Return" (French: Persepolis. Vol. 2) - 2000 

This is another book from the "Our Shared Shelf" group on Goodreads. A good one this time.

I would have never thought I'd enjoy a graphical novel this much. This is not just another comic strip, it's a memoir, a historical novel. This is the story of a young child growing up in wartime. You can compare the girl to Anne Frank or Zlata Filipović who both wrote their diaries as children and told the world about the atrocities that happened in their countries.

Marjane Satrapi is just a child like this, she grows up in Iran and has to see how her world is shattered, how everything she knew before gets either killed or destroyed. She learns how to live with danger, how to hide her thoughts from people around her, sometimes even her best friends. Her parents send her to Austria where she has to face different troubles without the help of an adult.

In the second book, she returns to Iran, hoping to find a better life there again but is once again thrown into upheaval and sadness. I don't want to tell you all too much but you can read it anywhere, she lives in France in the meantime.

The beauty of the book is not the alone the stories the author is telling us, it's also the way she tells them, she puts history in simple drawings, she doesn't add any embellishments, she shows it how it is/was. And she explains backgrounds and tries to make us understand how it really was.

Great books.  I borrowed them from the library but I might buy them myself and lend them to any friend who is interested. Because if we don't learn from this kind of history, we'll never learn.

While researching for more background - yes, I always do that, as well, I came upon this very interesting video about 100 years of Iranian history, explained in 11 women's hairstyles. Watch it, it's very impressing.

Some comments from the book club discussion:

• It was a horrifying but very gripping way to tell about the growing up in a war zone and coming to Europe after it.
• I think I am wiser again for have read it and the discussion was very interesting.
• I hope the graphic novel will be widely translated, it won prices in Finland and I recognised everything the artist told about surviving and healing from a death scare.
• The complete Persepolis is a wonderful and moving book. I especially enjoyed the drawings that captured the changes of a young girl as she became an adolescent and emerged as a young woman. Imagine growing up while your home is immersed in such upheaval. I developed a fondness and admiration for Marji as I read. What stays with me is the sense of a rich, vibrant , beautiful culture smothering under the veils of an oppressive religious regime. So powerful.
  

We discussed this in our international online book club in October 2021.

From the back covers:

"Wise, funny, and heartbreaking, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi's memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran's last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country.

Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life. Marjane's child's-eye view of dethroned emperors, state-sanctioned whippings, and heroes of the revolution allows us to learn as she does the history of this fascinating country and of her own extraordinary family. Intensely personal, profoundly political, and wholly original, Persepolis is at once a story of growing up and a reminder of the human cost of war and political repression. It shows how we carry on, with laughter and tears, in the face of absurdity. And, finally, it introduces us to an irresistible little girl with whom we cannot help but fall in love."

and

"In Persepolis, heralded by the Los Angeles Times as 'one of the freshest and most original memoirs of our day,' Marjane Satrapi dazzled us with her heartrending memoir-in-comic-strips about growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Here is the continuation of her fascinating story. In 1984, Marjane flees fundamentalism and the war with Iraq to begin a new life in Vienna. Once there, she faces the trials of adolescence far from her friends and family, and while she soon carves out a place for herself among a group of fellow outsiders, she continues to struggle for a sense of belonging.
Finding that she misses her home more than she can stand, Marjane returns to Iran after graduation. Her difficult homecoming forces her to confront the changes both she and her country have undergone in her absence and her shame at what she perceives as her failure in Austria. Marjane allows her past to weigh heavily on her until she finds some like-minded friends, falls in love, and begins studying art at a university. However, the repression and state-sanctioned chauvinism eventually lead her to question whether she can have a future in Iran.

As funny and poignant as its predecessor, Persepolis 2 is another clear-eyed and searing condemnation of the human cost of fundamentalism. In its depiction of the struggles of growing up - here compounded by Marjane’s status as an outsider both abroad and at home - it is raw, honest, and incredibly illuminating."

Landers, Brian "Empires Apart"

Landers, Brian "Empires Apart. A History of American and Russian Imperialism" - 2010

This was a great recommended from a good friend of mine. It summarizes almost all of Europe's history as well as the North American one, compares both "empires" in chronological order and gives a great overview over today's' troubles, as well. There is so much information with so many details in this book, it's amazing how the author managed to put it all on under 600 pages.

It is interesting to see the similarities in the two great super powers of the cold war as well as the differences, the approach to expanding their territory and their influence on anything in the world.

The work is written in quite an easy manner, so even if you are not used to historical works, you should get through this with no problems. I am sure there are people who dislike the book because it doesn't just emphasize on the difficulties and problems caused by the Russians but also those the USA is responsible for but I believe it is quite an impartial view and therefore worth a read. Thought-provoking.

From the back cover: "The American road to empire started when the first English settlers landed in Virginia. Simultaneously, the first Russians crossed the Urals and the two empires that would dominate the twentieth century were born. Empires Apart covers the history of the Americans and Russians from the Vikings to the present day. It shows the two empires developed in parallel as they expanded to the Pacific and launched wars against the nations around them. They both developed an imperial 'ideology' that was central to the way they perceived themselves.
Soon after, the ideology of the Russian Empire also changed with the advent of Communism. The key argument of this book is that these changes did not alter the core imperial values of either nation; both Russians and Americans continued to believe in their manifest destiny. Corporatist and Communist imperialism changed only the mechanics of empire. Both nations have shown that they are still willing to use military force and clandestine intrigue to enforce imperial control. Uniquely, Landers shows how the broad sweep of American history follows a consistent path from the first settlers to the present day and, by comparing this with Russia's imperial path, demonstrates the true nature of American global ambitions."

Here are a few quotes I liked for one reason or another:
"He [Constantinus VII] is said to have proposed marriage to her [Olga, Svytalov's mother]; clearly it was a truth then [950] universally acknowledged that a woman in possession of a large fortune must be in search of a husband." (page 24)
This link to my favourite author, a sentence everyone who likes classic books will know, shows how little times have changed.

"History is not what is taught in the classroom or buried in academic journals. History is the random collection of pictures and phrases, stories and prejudices that accretes drop by drop in the mind." (page 295)
I think that is one of the reasons we should read as many different kind of books from different authors with very different background. In order to learn from the history.

"... much of the twentieth century can be characterised as a Tale of Two Empires ..." (page 512)
Yes, indeed. The question is, is that a good thing or not? I think we should always have more than one superpower in order not to be overrun by the one and only but having two alone is not that great, either, because one will always try to overcome the other. And in the end, the "little man" pays, as always.

Nafisi, Azar "Reading Lolita in Tehran"

Nafisi, Azar "Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books" - 2003 

A beautifully written memoir about a dark time. It is not just a book about different books and a class discussing them, it is a precise account of a country turning from modern times into the past, taking away the human rights of half of their population, something that happens all over this world.

We can learn about Azar Nafisi's life as a professor/teacher before the revolution, her life during the Iran/Iraq war and also about the different cultures of the East and the West.

We also get to know all the students, she introduces them to us, their character and their troubles. I would have like to meet all of them.

I have not read even half of the books she discussed with her students but I can say about those that I have read that she did a great job with her descriptions and the discussions they brought in that country far away both in time and distance from the classic books. I will certainly put quite a few of those listed on my wish list.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"In Iran in the late 90s, Azar Nafisi and seven young women – her former students – gathered at her house every Thursday to discuss forbidden works of Western literature. Shy and uncomfortable at first, they soon began to open up, not only about the novels they were reading but also about their own dreams and disappointments. Their personal stories intertwine with those they are reading – Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby, and Lolita – in this rare glimpse of women's lives in revolutionary Iran. A work of great passion and beauty, it is an uplifting account of quiet resistance in the face of repression."

And here is a list of all the books the author discussed with her students:

al-Radi, Nuha "Baghdad Diaries"
Atwood, Margaret "The Blind Assassin"
Austen, Jane "Emma", "Mansfield Park", "Pride and Prejudice" 
Bellow, Soul "The Dean's December" and "More Die of Heartbreak"
Brontë, Emily "Wuthering Heights"
Carroll, Lewis "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"
Conrad, Joseph "Under Western Eyes"
Fielding, Henry "Shamela" and "Tom Jones"
Fitzgerald, F. Scott "The Great Gatsby" 
Flaubert, Gustave "Madame Bovary"
Frank, Anne "The Diary of Anne Frank" 
James, Henry "The Ambassadors, "Daisy Miller" and "Washington Square
Kafka, Franz "In the Penal Colony" and "The Trial"
Melville, Herman "The Confidence-Man"
Nabokov, Vladimir "Lolita", "Invitation to a Beheading" and "Pnin" 
Orne Jewett, Sarah "The Country of the Pointed Firs"
Pezeshkzad, Iraj "My Uncle Napoleon"
Ravitch, Diane "The Language Police"
Salamon, Julie "The Net of Dreams"
Satrapi, Marjae "Persepolis"
Scheherazade "A Thousand and One Nights"
Sebald, W.G. "The Emigrants"
Shields, Carol "The Stone Diaries"
Skvorecky, Josef "The Engineer of Human Souls"
Spark, Muriel "Loitering with Intent" and "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie"
Svevo, Italo "Confessions"
Taylor, Katherine Kressman "Address Unknown"
Taylor, Peter "A Summons to Memphis"
Twain, Mark "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
Tyler, Anne "Back When We Were Grownups" and "St. Maybe"
Vargas Llosa, Mario "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter" 

Abdolah, Kader "My Father’s Notebook"

Abdolah, Kader (Hossein Sadjadi Ghaemmaghami Farahani) "My Father’s Notebook" (Dutch: Spijkerschrift) - 2000

In 2010, we read "The House of the Mosque" in our book club. It was by the same author and I wanted to read this book ever since. Well, I finally did and I am not disappointed. Same as in his other book, the author manages to transport us to the country of his birth, not just in place but also in time. He tells us about the changes during the decades that he lived there.

This novel is even more personal, it is almost an autobiography. Ishmael, the protagonist in this story, has a deaf-mute father who works as a carpet restaurateur, same as Kader Abdolah, whose pseudonym is the pen name of Hossein Sadjadi Ghaemmaghami Farahani. The name is an homage to two friends who were executed in Iran, one during the regime of the shah, the other one under the ayatollahs.

Ishmael ends up in the Netherlands as a writer, his wife follows him later ... well, I think I leave it at that, there are more similarities between the author and his protagonist.

Coming back to the book, it does go a bit back and forth, from Ismail's father Aga Akbar's youth to today, then back to Aga Akbar's youth, then Ishmael's youth, his studies ... But it is in no way confusing. A good report about the history of the situation in Iran.

I also quite liked the subject of the original Dutch title: "Spijkerschrift" meaning cuneiform script, the very first known system of writing. His father writes this way, since he can't hear and talk, he develops his own spelling. Quite interesting if you are into this kind of topic.

This novel is political as well as historical. A fascinating read.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"On a holy mountain in the depths of Persia there is a cave with a mysterious cuneiform carving deep inside it. Aga Akbar, a deaf-mute boy from the mountain, develops his own private script from these symbols and writes passionately of his life, his family and his efforts to make sense of the changes the twentieth century brings to his country. Exiled in Holland a generation later, Akbar's son Ishmael struggles to decipher the notebook, reflecting how his own political activities have forced him to flee his country and abandon his family. As he gets closer to the heart of his father's story, he unravels the intricate tale of how the silent world of a village carpet-mender was forced to give way to one where the increasingly hostile environment of modern Iran has brought the family both love and sacrifice."

I read this book in the original Dutch.

Şafak, Elif "The Forty Rules of Love"

Şafak, Elif "The Forty Rules of Love: A Novel of Rumi" - 2001

We had a great discussion, not just because we all read the book but also because we had two members who could explain to us all the questions we had. Wonderful.

There are really two novels in this book. Ella, an American woman receives a script to be edited. It is about Rumi, a Muslim poet who lived in the 13th century. His poems are world famous.

We thought the story of Rumi was really fantastic, he teaches fate and love. The book made some of us both peaceful and tearful. We liked that it went through different stages, going from the present to the past, that it had many characters. We also liked that the author uses different narrators so you can see the events from different perspectives (always a favourite of mine). We have a chance to develop empathy.

We asked ourselves whether there was a political message. Can fiction be political? What does she want to tell us with this story?

There is something special to the original language of the book. Elif Şafak wrote it in English first, then translated it into Turkish and retranslated and rewrote it in English. It is a bestseller in Turkey, people like her, she is nice. Elif Şafak is a world person, international, she respects all cultures and religions, is interested in Sufism. The novel is fiction, even though Rumi and Shamz are real people. She uses all those vices to talk about the differences in the Islamic world, therefore it is such a good book for this day and age.

As already mentioned, we especially loved the inner part, the book in the book, not so much Ella's story. She seemed to us like a caricature of a housewife from the 40s. The "outer book" doesn't seem real, seemed like "Chick lit" to us, added to attract more readers.

Another little criticism about Elif Şafak. She is a wonderfully articulate intelligent woman but her usuing Americanism in the 13th century was a little disturbing.

Some of my favourite quotes of the novel:  
"'The sharia is like a candle', said Shams of Tabriz. 'It provides us with much valuable light. But let us not forget that a candle helps us to go from one place to another in the dark. If we forget where we are headed and instead concentrate on the candle, what good is it?'"
and "Each time I say good-bye to a place I like, I feel like I am leaving a part of me behind."

And a last remark by one of our members: "I think that if everyone just adopted one of the rules ... the world would be a better place!"

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"An American housewife is transformed by an intriguing manuscript about the Sufi mystic poet Rumi.

In this lyrical, exuberant follow-up to her 2007 novel, The Bastard of Istanbul, acclaimed Turkish author Elif Shafak unfolds two tantalizing parallel narratives- one contemporary and the other set in the thirteenth century, when Rumi encountered his spiritual mentor, the whirling dervish known as Shams of Tabriz-that together incarnate the poet's timeless message of love.

Ella Rubenstein is forty years old and unhappily married when she takes a job as a reader for a literary agent. Her first assignment is to read and report on Sweet Blasphemy, a novel written by a man named Aziz Zahara. Ella is mesmerized by his tale of Shams's search for Rumi and the dervish's role in transforming the successful but unhappy cleric into a committed mystic, passionate poet, and advocate of love. She is also taken with Shams's lessons, or rules, that offer insight into an ancient philosophy based on the unity of all people and religions, and the presence of love in each and every one of us. As she reads on, she realizes that Rumi's story mir­rors her own and that Zahara - like Shams - has come to set her free."

You may also want to read "Araf aka The Saint of Incipient Insanities" (Araf)

We discussed this in our international book club in February 2012.

Abdolah, Kader "The House of the Mosque"

Abdolah, Kader (Hossein Sadjadi Ghaemmaghami Farahani) "The House of the Mosque" (Dutch: Het huis van de moskee) - 2005

This book had been on our wish list since 2005, unfortunately, it took a couple of years until it was translated, even though it was elected the 2nd best Dutch novel ever (after "The Discovery of Heaven" which we read in February 2004). It seems to always take ages to translate novels into English. Our Dutch member heard a lot about the novel in the Netherlands, even saw the author.

Even though this is not an autobiography, the author's life resembles that of his main character, e.g. he wanted to study literature but studied physics.

Everybody present liked or really loved the book, most really loved it. We liked to read about the symbols, grandmothers, place of women, warning against fundamentalists, fanaticism. The book is a good teacher. The novel contains a lot of information about Iran, immigrants, the political situation.

It is told on three different levels, mythical, mystical, actual. Many symbols. Each chapter is introduced by a phrase from the Koran, we loved that. Persians seem intelligent, educated, beautiful, elegant. It is a beautiful description of the sense of displacement and loss. The author shows life in different classes, the power of industrialisation, the power of the bazaar. This book definitely makes you want to know more about the topic.

It is hard to  imagine living in the midst of the revolution, therefore this gives you a very good account. They had an ordinary society before, then everything went wrong.

Some were also more interested in the political aspects, communism, religious dictatorship, this book had it all. It also contains a lot of poetry which not all of us liked. We loved the description of people, society, history.

Apparently, Kader Abdolah suggests "My Father's Notebook", he likes it better. He also writes a weekly article in the "Volkskrant", a Dutch newspaper.

We discussed this in our international book club in September 2010.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2023.

From the back cover:

"A sweeping, compelling story which brings to life the Iranian Revolution, from an author who experienced it first-hand.

In the house of the mosque, the family of Aqa Jaan has lived for eight centuries. Now it is occupied by three cousins: Aqa Jaan, a merchant and head of the city's bazaar; Alsaberi, the imam of the mosque; and Aqa Shoja, the mosque's muezzin. The house itself teems with life, as each of their families grows up with their own triumphs and tragedies.

Sadiq is waiting for a suitor to knock at the door to ask for her hand, while her two grandmothers sweep the floors each morning dreaming of travelling to Mecca. Meanwhile, Shahbal longs only to get hold of a television to watch the first moon landing. All these daily dramas are played out under the watchful eyes of the storks that nest on the minarets above.

But this family will experience upheaval unknown to previous generations. For in Iran, political unrest is brewing. The shah is losing his hold on power; the ayatollah incites rebellion from his exile in France; and one day the ayatollah returns. The consequences will be felt in every corner of Aqa Jaan's family."