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A Persian Requiem is the first published novel by an Iranian woman and one of the most widely read novels in Iran. It begins on the eve of World War II, as two landholder brothers, Yusef and Abol Ghassem, react in opposite ways to the British request for their grain harvests. Through Zari, Yusef's wife, we hear, see, and feel the power struggle created by each brother's choice. Yusef refuses to sell his grain out from under the people of his homeland to feed a foreign army. Abol Ghassem seeks personal gain through accepting British policies and their determination to keep Iran's oil out of Hitler's control, and he tries to persuade his brother to sell. Zari believes she must be the family peacemaker, a difficult role in these troubled times ...she kept thinking about her past, and wondering whether she had always been a coward or whether she had become one. A Persian Requiem emanates the heat of the Iranian summer and the longing for the coolness of water. Here are individual lives in a country caught in an international power struggle landowners and their families, servants who hold knowing tongues, nomadic tribes whose lands are being controlled by outside forces, and Zari, a woman who must come to understand her role amidst her family, her country, and the world.
ISBN: 0807612731
Author: Simin Daneshvar, Roxane Zand (Translator), Simin Danishvar
Category: Women
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