Book description
A superb, authoritatively written insider's account of Iran, one of the most mysterious but significant and powerful nations in the world.
Few historians and journalists writing in English have been able to meaningfully examine post-revolutionary Iranian life. Years after his death, the shadow of Ayatollah Khomeini still looms over Shi'ite…
Why read it?
1 author picked In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Everywhere I went in Iran in 1998 and 2002, there were huge wall paintings of martyrs who had been killed in the war against Iraq (1980-88). Mass attacks led to appalling casualties.
I returned a vicarious Iranian patriot. Christopher de Bellaigue, who speaks good Farsi, took me far deeper into post-revolutionary society in his numerous conversations with individuals from many different milieux, including two who had fought and survived the war.
I regard him as the best guide to the temper of contemporary Iran and the reasons for the fall of the secularizing regimes of the shahs (not least the…
From James' list on Iran, past and present.
If you love In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs...
December on 5C4
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
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