Censoring An Iranian Love Story: A novel
By (Author) Shahriar Mandanipour
Translated by Sara Khalili
Little, Brown Book Group
Abacus
12th April 2011
3rd February 2011
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
891.5533
Winner of Muslim Writers Award for Best International Fiction 2011 (UK)
Paperback
304
Width 126mm, Height 196mm, Spine 22mm
220g
Truly original, CENSORING AN IRANIAN LOVE STORY is an incredibly imaginative yet always charming love story set in contemporary Iran that crackles with wit, verve and social comment: Sara falls in love with Dara through secret messages hidden in code in the pages of books that have been outlawed, but then something quite extraordinary and unexpected happens. Through adeptly handled asides to the reader, as well as anecdotes, codes and metaphors, and cheeky references to the wonderfully rich Iranian literary heritage, the novel builds to offer a revealing yet often playful and hopeful comment on the pressures of writing within the tightly prescribed Islamic regime, pressures that naturally are heightened where affairs of the heart are concerned.
** Censoring an Iranian Love Story is intriguing even before its first page . . . An absorbing and unique novel with a depth of feeling for words and stories in Iran The Scotsman
** A playful tale . . . Censoring an Iranian Love Story is a brilliant novel about the complexities of writing and publishing in Iran Guardian** A marvellous tale . . . This is a writer intoxicated with the possibilities of language, and his timely, well-translated book is about a potent love affair, not only with women, but also with words New Statesman - *Shahriar Mandanipour was born in 1957 in Shiraz and has had fiction and non-fiction published in Iran, although his work was banned between 1992 and 1998; he is regarded as one of Iran's most accomplished and successful writers. He is currently a visiting scholar at Harvard.