Items17The creator’s order
  1. 1My Uncle Napoleon (2006)My Uncle Napoleon (2006)Published Jan 1, 2006A boy falls for his cousin Layli in a Tehran compound where an extended family shares a garden and few secrets stay private. Choose this long comedy for the gap between the boy’s earnest first love and the elaborate plots his uncle sees everywhere. Translated from Persian by Dick Davis.0
  2. 2Things We Left Unsaid (2012)Things We Left Unsaid (2012)Published Jan 1, 2012In the oil city of Abadan, Clarice Ayvazian’s routines begin to look different to her when an Armenian family moves in across the street. Pick this novel for quiet humor and the small changes in a household that tell you what Clarice wants before she has said it aloud. Translated from Persian by…0
  3. 3Censoring an Iranian Love Story (2009)Censoring an Iranian Love Story (2009) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2009Sara and Dara are trying to have a romance, and the novelist who invents them is trying to get it past a censor. Read for the marks that pressure leaves on the page. Crossed-out lines let you see the story the novelist is writing and the one that might reach readers. Translated from Persian by Sara…0
  4. 4Zanān bidūn-i mardān (1998)Zanān bidūn-i mardān (1998)Published Jan 1, 1998In Women Without Men, five women take different paths to a garden outside Tehran. A housewife, a sex worker, and a schoolteacher arrive with very different expectations of what life there might offer. Choose this short, fablelike novel for the questions it opens about the kinds of freedom a…0
  5. 5Missing Soluch (2007)Missing Soluch (2007) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2007After Soluch disappears, his wife Mergan is left to raise their children in a remote village. Choose this novel for the way her anger and loyalty coexist as changing village work and power relations narrow her choices. Translated from Persian by Kamran Rastegar.0
  6. 6The Complete Persepolis (2023)The Complete Persepolis (2023)Published Jan 1, 2023Marjane Satrapi’s graphic memoir follows her from childhood in revolutionary Tehran through school in Vienna and back to Iran. The complete edition lets the two places change how you read each other. Choose it for the shifts between the child’s view of what adults say at home and the young woman’s…0
  7. 7Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003) 7.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2003A literature class moves into Azar Nafisi’s living room, where seven former students meet to read and talk. Read this memoir for the sense of what a room can make possible, and for the different ways its readers recognize themselves in books written far away.0
  8. 8Savushun (1990)Savushun (1990)Published Jan 1, 1990In wartime Shiraz, Zari hears politics discussed at home and tries to keep her family safe as the conflict comes closer. Choose Simin Daneshvar’s novel for the experience of history arriving in a house through visitors, meals, and overheard talk. This edition was translated from Persian by M. R.…0
  9. 9The Gowkaran Tree in the Middle of Our Kitchen (2025)The Gowkaran Tree in the Middle of Our Kitchen (2025) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2025A group of children gets lost in a palace, and this Zoroastrian family saga follows their lives across decades of Iranian history. Choose it for the scale and for the way folklore slips into the family’s own stories. The translator from Persian chose to remain anonymous.0
  10. 10The Book of Fate (2013)The Book of Fate (2013) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2013Massoumeh’s life is already shaped by her family’s decisions when the Shah’s secret service comes for her husband. This is a long domestic saga to choose for the way her problems keep changing even as other people continue to decide what counts as duty. Translated from Persian by Sara Khalili.0