$19.00 USD

The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran fits the family novel mold in many ways: it spans generations, explores inherited trauma, and depicts the effects of politics on a family … This highly political and touching novel gives a great insight into the political situation in Iran … In translating this vision of authorial omnipotence — of an imagined freedom — Ruth Martin brings Shida Bazyar’s politically urgent and thematically significant voice to English-speaking readers … creating an experience that feels both immediate and compelling.”

Ankita HarbolaReading in Translation

The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran

$19.00 USD

The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran

Overview

A captivating, polyphonic novel of one family’s flight from and return to Iran.

1979. Behsad, a young communist revolutionary, fights with his friends for a new order after the Shah’s expulsion. He tells of sparking hope, of clandestine political actions, and of how he finds the love of his life in the courageous, intelligent Nahid.

1989. Nahid lives her new life in West Germany with Behsad. With their young children, they spend hour after hour in front of the radio, hoping for news from others who went into hiding after the mullahs came to power.

1999. Laleh returns to Iran with her mother, Nahid. Between beauty rituals and family secrets, she gets to know a Tehran that hardly matches her childhood memories.

2009. Laleh’s brother Mo is more concerned with a friend’s heartbreak than with student demonstrations in Germany. But then the Green Revolution breaks out in Iran and turns the world upside down …

A topical, moving novel about revolution, oppression, resistance, and the absolute desire for freedom.

Details

Format
Paperback
Size
5.1in x 7.8in
Extent
288 pages
ISBN
9781964992105
RRP
USD$19.00
Pub date
15 July 2025
Rights held
World English

Praise

“A fascinating look at the life of an immigrant family in Germany … Bazyar writes with a brilliant clarity … Special commendation goes to Ruth Martin for her translation.”

Driftless Area Review

“We always think we know something about people, but then Shida Bazyar brilliantly shows us how much we still have to learn.”

Olga Grjasnowa, author of City of Jasmine
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About the Author

Shida Bazyar, born in 1988, studied writing in Hildesheim, and, in addition to writing, worked in youth education for many years. She is the author of The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran—which has won the Blogger Literary Award, Ulla Hahn Prize, and Uwe Johnson Prize, among others, and has been translated into Dutch, Farsi, French, and Turkish—and Sisters in Arms.

more about the author 

Translator

Ruth Martin studied English literature before gaining a PhD in German. She has been translating fiction and nonfiction books since 2010, by authors ranging from Joseph Roth and Hannah Arendt to Volker Weidermann and Shida Bazyar. She has taught translation at the University of Kent and the Bristol Translates summer school, and is a former co-chair of the Society of Authors Translators Association.

more about the translator