A Persian Requiem

A Persian Requiem is a powerful and evocative novel. Set in the southern Persian town of Shiraz in the last years of World War II, when the British army occupied the south of Persia, the novel chronicles the life of Zari, a traditional, anxious and superstitious woman whose husband, Yusef, is an idealistic feudal landlord. The occupying army upsets the balance of traditional life and throws the local people into conflict. Yusef is anxious to protect those who depend upon him and will stop at nothing to do so. His brother, on the other hand, thinks nothing of exploiting his kinsmen to further his own political ambitions. Thus a web of political intrigue and hostilities is created, which slowly destroys families. In the background, tribal leaders are in open rebellion against the government, and a picture of a society torn apart by unrest emerges.
In the midst of this turbulence, normal life carries on in the beautiful courtyard of Zari's house, in the rituals she imposes upon herself and in her attempt to keep the family safe from external events. But the corruption engendered by occupation is pervasive - some try to profit as much as possible from it, others look towards communism for hope, while yet others resort to opium. Finally even Zari's attempts to maintain normal family life are shattered as disaster strikes.
An immensely moving story, A Persian Requiem is also a powerful indictment of the corrupting effects of colonialism.
A Persian Requiem, published in 1969 in Iran, was the first novel written by an Iranian woman and, sixteen reprints and half a million copies later, it remains the most widely read Persian novel. In Iran it helped shape the ideas and attitudes of a generation in its revelation of the factors that contributed to the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Published here in a different translation under the Persian title Savushun, it is now available in the original English translation by Roxane Zand.
Simin Daneshvar was born into a provincial, middle-class family in Shiraz in 1921, and educated at a missionary school and later at Tehran University. The comparatively relaxed political environment of the forties in Iran led her to choose journalism as her first career, and she began writing fiction at the same time. She subsequently married Jalal Al-e Ahmad, the leading Iranian intellectual and writer, received her doctorate from Tehran University and won a Fulbright scholarship to Stanford University. Upon her return to Iran she became an associate professor of art history at Tehran University. She was an articulate and outspoken lecturer and her promotion was hindered by Savak, the secret police.
After her husband's untimely death in 1969, Daneshvar assumed a leading role in the Writer's Association which he had helped found and she provided moral support for intellectuals opposing the Shah's regime. After the Revolution in 1979, she retired from her University post. Since then, she has kept a low profile while continuing to write fiction and remaining deeply committed to her life-long concern with women and their role in Iranian society.

The first novel written by an Iranian woman - first published in Persian in 1969 and reprinted 15 times with sales of 500,000 copies