Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

Timely, timeless

Intergenerational Iranian loss
by
August 2025, no. 478

The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyer, translated from German by Ruth Martin

Scribe, $29.99 pb, 266 pp

Buy this book

ABR receives a commission on items purchased through this link. All ABR reviews are fully independent.

Timely, timeless

Intergenerational Iranian loss
by
August 2025, no. 478

It would diminish this novel to describe it as ‘timely’. ‘Timeless’ is nearer the truth. The risk of a catastrophic breaking out involving Iran is a symptom of decades of tragedy, which novelist Shida Bazyar has conveyed here with a rare balance of vivid social realism and intimate introspection. The results are masterful.

Although the watershed years of 1979, 1989, 1999, and 2009 determine its structure, this novel is not a recital of Iran’s crises involving fundamentalist and liberalising forces. Rather, it depicts the personal stories of five members of a family in exile, whose entire existence is conditioned by yearning for a free Iran. Not even relocation to Germany, or the estrangement of younger generations from living memory of Iran, can erase that desire. Speaking in turn, each character – parents Behzad and Nahid, children Laleh, Mo, and Tara – narrates a fresh reckoning with political failure down the decades.

The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran

The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran

by Shida Bazyer, translated from German by Ruth Martin

Scribe, $29.99 pb, 266 pp

Buy this book

ABR receives a commission on items purchased through this link. All ABR reviews are fully independent.

From the New Issue

You May Also Like

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.