Despite changes in sovereignty and in religious thought, certain aspects of Iranian culture and identity have persisted since antiquity. Drawing on an exploration of history, religion and literature to define Iranian cultural identity and link the Persian past with more recent cultural and political phenomena, this book examines the history of Iran from its ancient roots to the Islamic period, paying particular attention to pre-Islamic Persian religions and their influence upon later Muslim practices and precepts in Iran. Accessible English translations of the pre-Islamic Andarz (Advice) literature and of the Adab (Counsel) genre of the Islamic era illustrate the convergence of religion and literature in Iranian culture and how the explicitly religious Adab texts were very much influenced and shaped by the Andarz sources. Within the context of this historical material, and in particular the pre-Islamic religious material, the author highlights its literary and ethical implications on post-Islamic Iranian identity. Exploring the link between a consistent pre-Islamic Iranian identity and a unique post-Islamic one, this book will be of interest to students of Iranian Studies, Middle Eastern studies and Religious Studies, as well as anyone wishing to learn more about Persian history and culture.
As the title implies, the stories are set in Tehran. They have as their context many issues related to women's lives. The stories' protagonists are women, and have to inwardly or outwardly contend with, and strive against, a traditional patriarchal society and a theocratic regime that has repressed their aspirations and their hopes for fulfillment. But the book is fiction, not tracts about cultural or political topics, or even about practical realities. The women in these stories are seeking to first distinguish, and then to preserve, their souls. They find themselves in an in-between zone that shrinks or expands the possibilities of freedom they imagine might be theirs. Nonetheless, they don't want to leave the impression that their narratives primarily concern their loneliness, suffering, despair, or defeat. The characters are not cerebral creatures: they think with their female bodies; they mediate the world around them through the vivid perceptions that flood their senses. In the often unhappy circumstances in which they find themselves, they assert their identities through a visceral identification or analogy with someone or something outside themselves. Their true defence, their most efficacious means of survival, consists in how they see, hear, smell, and touch the world around them and in doing so blend a personalized morality and an all-embracing sensibility. Whether or not they realize it in the midst of what they do, their capacity to maintain a sensory and intuitive porousness, while undergoing the adversities that afflict their lives, is a kind of triumph.
A city of stories – short, fragmented, amorphous, and at times contradictory – Tehran is an impossible tale to tell. For the capital city of one of the most powerful nations in the Middle East, its literary output is rarely acknowledged in the West. This unique celebration of its writing brings together ten stories exploring the tensions and pressures that make the city what it is: tensions between the public and the private, pressures from without – judgemental neighbours, the expectations of religion and society – and from within – family feuds, thwarted ambitions, destructive relationships. The psychological impact of these pressures manifests in different ways: a man wakes up to find a stranger relaxing in his living room and starts to wonder if this is his house at all; a struggling writer decides only when his girlfriend breaks his heart will his work have depth... In all cases, coping with these pressures leads us, the readers, into an unexpected trove of cultural treasures – like the burglar, in one story, descending into the basement of a mysterious antique collector’s house – treasures of which we, in the West, are almost wholly ignorant. Translated by: Sara Khalili, Sholeh Wolpé, Alireza Abiz, Caroline Croskery, Farzaneh Doosti, Shahab Vaezzadeh, Niloufar Talebi, Lida Nosrati, Susan Niazi and Poupeh Missaghi. Foreword by Orkideh Behrouzan. Developed in partnership with Visiting Arts. 'The aesthetic sensibility of Iranian culture appears, to the West, as mainly pre-modern, if not actually anti-modern... The fiction showcased in The Book of Tehran is a welcome corrective to this tendency... These stories feel decidedly contemporary in style and subject matter alike, with their protagonists' inner lives and interpersonal relationships at the fore.' - The Times Literary Supplement 'Fiction exploring the interior life of contemporary Iranians is not well represented in translations readily available in the West. The Book of Tehran aims to begin to redress the shortage...' - Asian Review of Books
Despite changes in sovereignty and in religious thought, certain aspects of Iranian culture and identity have persisted since antiquity. Drawing on an exploration of history, religion and literature to define Iranian cultural identity and link the Persian past with more recent cultural and political phenomena, this book examines the history of Iran from its ancient roots to the Islamic period, paying particular attention to pre-Islamic Persian religions and their influence upon later Muslim practices and precepts in Iran. Accessible English translations of the pre-Islamic Andarz (Advice) literature and of the Adab (Counsel) genre of the Islamic era illustrate the convergence of religion and literature in Iranian culture and how the explicitly religious Adab texts were very much influenced and shaped by the Andarz sources. Within the context of this historical material, and in particular the pre-Islamic religious material, the author highlights its literary and ethical implications on post-Islamic Iranian identity. Exploring the link between a consistent pre-Islamic Iranian identity and a unique post-Islamic one, this book will be of interest to students of Iranian Studies, Middle Eastern studies and Religious Studies, as well as anyone wishing to learn more about Persian history and culture.
The one constant throughout the protagonist's development toward some sort of independent personality is her ambivalent relationship with her tailor husband, Ebbie. (A cheating chauvinist not beyond reform.) Author Sholevar portrays their domestic life in modern Iran, on the cusp of the Shah's overthrow, with nuanced subtlety, wry humor, and a colorful sense of both the grotesque and mundane. Complicated by wealthy benevolent patrons and nefarious gangster-like neighbors (who can't abide the thought of an enlightened woman), all tangled up with the happenstance of Samira's own infidelity, the arc and scope of this story is ambitious---as is this first novel, in general, by poet Sholevar. William Burrison, English teacher, playwright, and poet
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