Stretching across forty years of Iranian history, Mahboobeh and Ahl tells the allergorical story of a young woman and the demon that haunts her, beginning at the outset of World War II and ending with the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Told with the simplicity of a folk tale, it explores the oppression of women within the contexts of tradition and modernity, leavening its critique with humor, beauty, and poetry. Reza Daneshvar has written four novels in Persian, three short story collections, and seven plays. This is his first publication in English; it is translated by Ashurbanipal Babilla and edited by Nahid Mozaffari and Deborah Tall. Reza Daneshvar currently lives in Paris and works as a radio journalist. Read an interview with Reza Daneshvar at http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=12977466&BRD=1395&PAG=461&dept_id=216620&rfi=6.
From Mahboobeh and Ahl
"The story they told was that Mahboobeh's father's aunt, Hajar, was responsible for the family's uprooting in the year one thousand, three hundred, and eighteen of the Hijra. A few months before Mahboobeh's birth in the city, the wind demon unleashed a savage storm from his sack, tearing up God's good earth, and exposing, bit by bit, for all to see, the remains of the aunt, gruesomely slain. Wailing and scandal filled the land...."
$7.95
31 pages
ISBN 0-9702498-4-5
