Perhaps the most important work in modern Iranian literature, this starkly beautiful novel examines the trials of an impoverished woman and her children living in a remote village in Iran, after the unexplained disappearance of her husband, Soluch. Lyrical yet unsparing, the novel examines her life as she contends with the political corruption, authoritarianism, and poverty of the village. It follows her vacillations between love for Soluch and anger at his absence, and her struggle to raise her children without their father. The novel critically evokes the unfulfilled aspirations of modern Iran, portraying a society caught between a past and a future that seem equally weighed down by injustice. This landmark novel -- the first ever written in the everyday language of the Iranian people -- revolutionized Persian literature in its beautiful and daring portrayal of the life of a marginal woman and her struggle to survive.

Author Biography

MAHMOUD DOWLATABADI is one of the Middle East's most important writers of the last century. The author of numerous novels, plays and screenplays, he is a leading proponent of social and artistic freedom in contemporary Iran. Born in 1940 in a remote farming region of Iran, the son of a shoemaker, his early life and teens were spent as an agricultural day laborer until he made his way to Tehran, where he started working in the theater and began writing plays, stories and novels. He is the author "Missing Soluch," published by Melville House and his first work to be translated into English""and" The Colonel" (Melville House, 2012), which was shortlisted for the Haus der Kulturen Berlin International Literary Award and longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize. Translator Kamran Rastegar teaches Arabic in the Department of German, Russian and Asian Languages and Literatures at Tufts University.