false 1076358 0 0 male 4836021 0307269787 9780307269782 39 <![CDATA[Censoring an Iranian Love Story]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1233262177m/4836021.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1233262177s/4836021.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4836021.Censoring_an_Iranian_Love_Story 3.47 105
The novel entwines two equally powerful narratives. A writer named Shahriar—the author’s fictional alter ego—has struggled for years against the all-powerful censor at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Now, on the threshold of fifty, tired of writing dark and bitter stories, he has come to realize that the “world around us has enough death and destruction and sorrow.” He sets out instead to write a bewitching love story, one set in present-day Iran. It may be his greatest challenge yet.

Beautiful black-haired Sara and fiercely proud Dara fall in love in the dusty stacks of the library, where they pass secret messages to each other encoded in the pages of their favorite books. But Iran’s Campaign Against Social Corruption forbids their being alone together. Defying the state and their disapproving parents, they meet in secret amid the bustling streets, Internet cafés, and lush private gardens of Tehran.

Yet writing freely of Sara and Dara’s encounters, their desires, would put Shahriar in as much peril as his lovers. Thus we read not just the scenes Shahriar has written but also the sentences and words he’s crossed out or merely imagined, knowing they can never be published.

Laced with surprising humor and irony, at once provocative and deeply moving, Censoring an Iranian Love Story takes us unforgettably to the heart of one of the world’s most alluring yet least understood cultures. It is an ingenious, wholly original novel—a literary tour de force that is a triumph of art and spirit.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 1076358 3.46 108 41 2972287 3.47 105 39 2009 7304871 030739042X 9780307390424 0 <![CDATA[Censoring an Iranian Love Story]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7304871-censoring-an-iranian-love-story 0.0 0 1076358 3.46 108 41 2972287 3.47 105 39 2010 2412590 1933633581 9781933633589 0 <![CDATA[Turquoise Ellipsis (The Contemporary Art of the Novella)]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2412590.Turquoise_Ellipsis 0.0 0 A breathtaking work of poetry and bravery: A love story about the obstacles to romance in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the writer's resourceful schemes to maneuver around the censor and escape the dangers of writing his tale.

Shahriar Mandanipour is one of Iran's leading writers and editor of the prestigious literary journal Thursday Evening. He is currently a fellow at Harvard.

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