MISSING SOLUCH
by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi
Fiction / $16.95
Deluxe Paperback Original
ISBN 1-933633-11-5

 “An outstanding master acheivement.”

              —Der Spiegel

“Beautifully and incisively rendered, and imbued throughout with hope.”

                      —Publishers Weekly

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 seems equally weighted down by injustice.

This landmark novel — poineering the use of 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.

Missing Souluch is published with the support of the Association of American Publishers’ Freedom-to-Publish Committee, assisting in the publication of voices censored by the U.S. State Department’s ban on books from the “Axis of Evil.”

MAHMOUD DOWLATABADI

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mahmoud Dowlatabadi is one of Iran’s most important writers. The author of numerous novels, plays and screenplays, he is a leading proponent of social and artistic freedom in contemporary Iran. Dowlatabadi pioneered the use of the everyday language of the Iranian people as suitable for high literary art, and often examines the lives of the marginal and oppressed in his work.

Born in a remote farming region of Iran, 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.

Though a dissident, he has been protected by the importance of his literary contribution and revered artistic stature, and he continues to be one of Iran’s most prolific and beloved writers. He has most recently stated that he will stop publishing his work until the climate of censorship lightens. He lives in Tehran. This is his first novel translated into English.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Kamran Rastegar is a translator, and teaches comparative studies in Arabic and Persian literatures at the University of Edinburgh. He currently lives in Edinburgh, UK.