Synopses & Reviews
Isaac Amin, an Iranian Jew, is arrested and imprisoned shortly after the 1979 revolution in Iran, accused of being a Zionist Spy. Dalia Sofer's remarkably accomplished debut novel,
The Septembers of Shiraz, follows his descent from a venerated, wealthy jeweler to a helpless prisoner, and chronicles the disquieting effect of his arrest on his family. In a starred review,
Library Journal praises, "This is a story that needs to be told, as a reminder of how political and religious ideologies can destroy individuals, families, and societies," while
Publishers Weekly says, "Nicely layered, the story shimmers with past secrets and hidden motivations. Sofer's dramatization of just-post-revolutionary Iran captures its small tensions and larger brutalities, which play vividly upon a family that cannot, even if it wishes to, confirm."
Faced with his immortality, Isaac examines the choices and compromises of his life, and as he becomes increasingly despondent, he dissects his relationships with his faith and with God. Having lived a secular life, he does not understand why he must now carry the burden of a religion that has become more of a liability to him than a salvation. But the interrogations and torture sessions that wither his body also feed his resolve to survive. Meanwhile, his son, already alienated in New York, must contend with his father's imprisonment from afar, and his wife and daughter, who must reconcile the indifference of the world around them with the collapse of their own, tread through their days with bewilderment.
"I have imagined him in his prison cell, hearing gunshots and counting his hours. I often remember the disquieting effect of his sudden disappearance on our household," explains Sofer about her desire to write a story based on her father and his month-long incarceration in Tehran's Evin prison in 1980. Born in Tehran, Iran, she fled with her family in 1982, at the age of ten. She received an MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College in 2002 and has been a resident at Yaddo. She lives in New York City.
Set in the early, dark days of the Islamic revolution, Sofer's The Septembers of Shiraz vividly depicts not only the undoing of a family, but also that of an entire country.
Review
"This is a story that needs to be told, as a reminder of how political and religious ideologies can destroy individuals, families, and societies
The family and political issues raised in the book are timely and ripe for discussion." Library Journal (starred review)
Review
"In this fickle literary world, it's impossible to predict whether Sofer's novel will become a classic, but it certainly stands a chance.... The Septembers of Shiraz is miraculously light in its touch, as beautiful and delicate as a book about suffering can be." Clare Messud, The New York Times
Review
"Sofer paints a complicated picture of postrevolutionary Iran... [A] powerful story honestly told." Yvonne Zipp, Christian Science Monitor
Review
"[Sofer]...seems wise beyond her years, and her prose, sturdy always, sometimes offers us consolation we weren't aware we needed even as we grasp it with both hands." Chicago Tribune
Review
"One initially fears that The Septembers of Shiraz will amount to an unremitting catalog of misery, but Ms. Sofer is more subtle than that." Wall Street Journal
Review
"Sofer herself emigrated from post-revolutionary Iran to New York, and her debut resonates with the empathy derived from that journey." Booklist
Synopsis
Set in Tehran during the aftermath of the 1979 revolution, Dalia Sofer's The Septembers of Shiraz follows the Amin family as they cope with the father's false imprisonment for being a spy, watch their formerly peaceful world collapse, and flee their homeland.
" A] richly evocative, powerfully affecting depiction of a prosperous Jewish family in Tehran shortly after the revolution . . . it's impossible to predict whether Sofer's novel will become a classic, but it certainly stands a chance . . . the book's simple plot is immediately engaging. . . . Sofer writes beautifully . . . and she tells her characters' stories with deceptive simplicity . . . The Septembers of Shiraz is miraculously light in its touch, as beautiful and delicate as a book about suffering can be."-Claire Messud, New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
Soon to be a major motion picture starring Adrien Brody and Salma Hayek
In the aftermath of the Iranian revolution, rare-gem dealer Isaac Amin is arrested, wrongly accused of being a spy. Terrified by his disappearance, his family must reconcile a new world of cruelty and chaos with the collapse of everything they have known. As Isaac navigates the terrors of prison, and his wife feverishly searches for him, his children struggle with the realization that their family may soon be forced to embark on a journey of incalculable danger.
Synopsis
In the aftermath of the Iranian revolution, rare-gem dealer Isaac Amin is arrested, wrongly accused of being a spy. Terrified by his disappear-ance, his family must reconcile a new world of cruelty and chaos with the collapse of everything they have known.
As Isaac navigates the tedium and terrors of prison, forging tenuous trusts, his wife feverishly searches for him, suspecting, all the while, that their once-trusted housekeeper has turned on them and is now acting as an informer. And as his daughter, in a childlike attempt to stop the wave of baseless arrests, engages in illicit activities, his son, sent to New York before the rise of the Ayatollahs, struggles to find happiness even as he realizes that his family may soon be forced to embark on a journey of incalculable danger.
A page-turning literary debut, The Septembers of Shiraz simmers with questions of identity, alienation, and love, not simply for a spouse or a child, but for all the intangible sights and smells of the place we call home.