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.