Censoring an Iranian Love Story
From one of Iran’s most acclaimed and controversial contemporary writers, his first novel to appear in English — a dazzlingly inventive work of fiction that opens a revelatory window onto what it’s like to live, to love, and to be an artist in today’s Iran.
The novel entwines two equally powerful narratives. A writer named Shahriar — the author’s fictional alter ego — has struggled for years against the all-powerful censor at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Now, on the threshold of fifty, tired of writing dark and bitter stories, he has come to realize that the “world around us has enough death and destruction and sorrow.” He sets out instead to write a bewitching love story, one set in present-day Iran. It may be his greatest challenge yet.
Beautiful black-haired Sara and fiercely proud Dara fall in love in the dusty stacks of the library, where they pass secret messages to each other encoded in the pages of their favorite books. But Iran’s Campaign Against...
Author: Mandanipour Shahriar
Year of publication: 2009
Translator: Khalili Sara
Genre: Modern prose
Number of pages: 361
Reading time: 6 h. 1 min.
Formats: FB2, EPUB, PDF
