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Dagbok i kilskrift
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I en grotta i Saffransberget lät den förste kungen av Persien hugga in en text i kilskrift om Mahdi (Messias) som ska komma och befria världen. Den dövstumme Agha Akbar förs till grottan för att kopiera kilskriften och skapar ett eget språk som han använder i sin dagbok. Många år senare sitter hans son Ismaiel i exil och försöker tyda dagboksanteckningarna. Det blir en res
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Hardcover, 314 pages
Published
2011
by Nordstedts
(first published December 31st 1999)
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Start your review of Dagbok i kilskrift

Kader Abdolah is a congenial story teller. He interweaves a father and son story with ancient tales and songs and then modern politics and the experience of exile. There is a mystical mountain cave with an ancient cuneiform inscription,the symbol of lasting Persian culture. The son, called Ishmael (another famous exile), is born into a provincial Persian family living in subsistence almost biblical conditions, then the son's native intelligence and reading ability get him to the university of Te
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Writing a good novel is one thing. Writing a good novel in a language not your own is something else. Kader Abdolah fled his country in 1985 and became a political refugee in The Netherlands in 1988. He learned the language and continued his writing career -had already published two books in Iran- in Dutch.Kader Abdolah often says that in the beginning of his writing in Dutch he had a limited amount of words available. It is exactly that which has in my opinion contributed much to his distinctiv
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Eight months ago, I have read THE TIN DRUM, it was about a dwarf in the days of the second world war. Kader Abdola talks about a deaf-mute man in the days of Reza Shah and then after islamic revolution. There is no similarity between these two stories, but they have only one thing in common, they are the best. The technique of writing is very special, you cannot easily find another writer with this quality.
The idea that influenced me to read this book was only the name of the wrtiter. He is pers ...more
The idea that influenced me to read this book was only the name of the wrtiter. He is pers ...more

A great work of fiction. Clever plot. Wonderful description. Poetic and tragic.
But read this one simply as a fictional work, and not as a text book for the history of Iran.
Written by a left-wing activist, you can expect what he will say about the Iranian history. Well, I cannot blame him. Like beauty, history is in the eye of the beholder.
But read this one simply as a fictional work, and not as a text book for the history of Iran.
Written by a left-wing activist, you can expect what he will say about the Iranian history. Well, I cannot blame him. Like beauty, history is in the eye of the beholder.

Since Dutch is my native language I read the original Dutch version of this book, but I'm reviewing it in English for the sake of community and accessibility.
I found this book somewhat difficult to get into storywise, because as a reader you start out with very little information about what is happening in the book and it doesn't seem to really go anywhere, but after a while I started to see that this might have been intentional, because that style actually fits the story really well. The book d ...more
I found this book somewhat difficult to get into storywise, because as a reader you start out with very little information about what is happening in the book and it doesn't seem to really go anywhere, but after a while I started to see that this might have been intentional, because that style actually fits the story really well. The book d ...more

This autobiographical novel is a lot of things. Part politics, history, geography, religion, it also takes its place among the growing literature of refugees and displacement. Meanwhile, it tells a heart-felt personal story about an educated man and his father, a deaf-mute carpet mender. Set in Iran during many decades of the twentieth century, it includes historical events and social changes and ends with the arrival of the year 2000. The two shahs, Mossadegh, and Khomeini take their time on st
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A son’s desire to ‘translate’ a notebook kept by his late deafmute father, written in an undecipherable cuneiform script, acts as a starting point for his recollections about his childhood in Iran, his relationship with his father, Iran’s political upheaval throughout the Shah and Khomeini’s rule, and his resulting forced political exile. The book repeatedly shifts between narrating the life of the son, Ismaiel, and his father, Aga Akbar, but I felt that deep down the book was really about Ismai
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I loved the House of the Mosque so was really looking forward to this. It's a moving story but I really only enjoyed the first and last sections which focus on Aga Akbar who is a deaf mute. The middle section is Ishmael's story, Aga's son, and I couldn't warm to him at all. We learn how political changes in Iran affected the lives of ordinary people. Ishmael chooses to join an opposition party, knowing that he was endangering the lives of his family. He is selfish and obsessed with his own role
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Jun 16, 2007
Flora
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
lovers of the written word
Shelves:
books-that-take-me-to-other-countri
For me, the book offered a lyrical lesson about the history and culture of Iran, a nation I know so little about. The writing is exquisite, and the story of the mute man's life is also memorable.
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I wasn't totally sure if I liked this book, but when I announced that I was done at the breakfast table this morning, my daughter asked me what the book was about and I realized that it was a really good book.
It is a book about the decisions you make and the work of trying to measure the good and bad of those decisions as you age. It is a book about families and how they make us who we are but also challenge who we become ever day. It is a book about trying to understand others despite all the b ...more
It is a book about the decisions you make and the work of trying to measure the good and bad of those decisions as you age. It is a book about families and how they make us who we are but also challenge who we become ever day. It is a book about trying to understand others despite all the b ...more

I loved the way this novel delved into the history of Iran with this wonderful cast of characters. A true surprise of a read. I picked up this book years ago at a book festival and hoped for the best. It sounded different and exotic with the author's pen name. I know so little about Iran except for the often spoken about Shah and Khomeini...well now I know just a little more but the little more I do know has intrigued me enough to discover more. That is the joy of reading...it entices you to dis
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Jul 15, 2013
Roma
rated it
it was ok
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
historical-fiction,
nederlandse-roman
Not especially well-written, rather chaotic, and the author didn't succeed to make me care very much about the characters, though the historical material was somewhat interesting to me.
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The English translation of My Father’s Notebook is the only book by Kader Abdolah that I’ve read. The novel is also my first and only encounter with the exiled Iranian writer who now lives in the Netherlands. But the issues Abdolah’s book highlight on life in Iran under the Shah, the heroic struggles of the leftist resistance movement, and the eventual ascendancy of the Islamist mullahs in the power struggle following the revolution of 1979, are all relevant and makes My Father’s Notebook a rewa
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An Iranian man living in the Netherlands tries to unravel his past through the entries of a notebook written in an incomprehensible cuneiform script. The notebook was written by his deaf father, who never learned to talk or read, who knew his way in the Iranian mountains like no other, who communicated only in sign language with his son and others in his family. What Aga Akbar could not communicate, he wrote down in his notebook.
Spijkerschrift is an exotic story of mountain caves and Persian tap ...more
Spijkerschrift is an exotic story of mountain caves and Persian tap ...more

A truly beautiful live story about the relationship between a boy, later, a man, and his deaf-mute father, both with their flaws but whose love and respect for each other never diminishes. This is told against the background of two rebellions in Iran, one against the Shah and the other against the Ayatollah. This was the book's weak point for me as I never felt the passion or terror of the struggle, even as the protagonist is in the middle of it, even as he's forced to escape with his life and g
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This book is a quick read which provides a fictional (yet often historically accurate) about a boy and his father and life in Iran. I liked how the book provided a bit of a historical introduction into the land without going to deep. The annecdotes on the father vary in quality. Overall though the book was a nice mix of fiction and history, albeit the ending seeming a bit rushed.

Dec 13, 2007
Katie
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Readers who enjoy historical fiction
Shelves:
bookclub-read
I didn't get into the book as quickly as I often do. But, it was intriguing enough to keep me going back. I liked it more and more as I read on, and really liked it by the end. It was very interesting to learn some Iranian history through this book.
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Oct 10, 2008
Leslie
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Leslie by:
I just happened upon this book at a family owned book store.
This books allows us to see a glimpse of life in Iran during the last few political changes. The part the US and England played in Iran is despicable. The book is uplifting even as the tragedies of the times unfold. I recommend this book to all my friends.

didn't finish it.... maybe someday.
it is a good book, maybe even great....
beautifully written, so i do recommend it.
i'm just to preoccupied right now to enjoy it fully...
when i finish i'll probably be adding a star ...more
it is a good book, maybe even great....
beautifully written, so i do recommend it.
i'm just to preoccupied right now to enjoy it fully...
when i finish i'll probably be adding a star ...more

A moving memoir of a deaf mute father, of the shah's father, of Persian rugs, of Persian poetry...Rumi, Omar Khayyam, Hafez? The narrator himself is an Irani leftist who escapes to Holland and looks back with nostalgia. ...more

This book was a trip to a faraway time and place. I couldn't put it down. I will now look for anything by this author
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On my list to read
I finished reading this book at 29. of August. A good book but the still of writing reminded me the book of "the hourse by the mosque" of the same author. ...more
I finished reading this book at 29. of August. A good book but the still of writing reminded me the book of "the hourse by the mosque" of the same author. ...more

Dec 25, 2011
Norah
marked it as to-read
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Norah by:
Sue
Shelves:
novels,
xmas-birthday-present
A Christmas present from my sister-in-law

Read to half the book, but could no longer make myself stick to it. Just wasn't my cup of tea.
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Kader Abdolah is the penname of Hossein Sadjadi Ghaemmaghami Farahani, an Iranian writer who also writes in Dutch. Abdolah has lived in the Netherlands since 1988.
He studied physics at the Arak College of Science and fled the country as a political refugee in 1988. Today he lives in Delft (The Netherlands), writing under a pseudonym made up of the names of two murdered friends. Het huis van de mos ...more
He studied physics at the Arak College of Science and fled the country as a political refugee in 1988. Today he lives in Delft (The Netherlands), writing under a pseudonym made up of the names of two murdered friends. Het huis van de mos ...more
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“Los persas no necesitan haber vivido el amor en sus propias carnes. En sus cuentos y mitos, incluso en el libro sagrado, el amor está por todas partes.”
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