Book & Persian Literature

[Rasputin]

The Pursuit of Pleasure

Drugs & Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500-1900

Author: Rudi Matthee





From ancient times to the present day, Iranian social, political, and economic life has been dramatically influenced by psychoactive agents. This book looks at the stimulants that, as put by a longtime resident of seventeenth-century Iran, Raphaël du Mans, provided Iranians with damagh, gave them a “kick,” got them into a good mood. By tracing their historical trajectory and the role they played in early modern Iranian society (1500–1900), Rudi Matthee takes a major step in extending contemporary debates on the role of drugs and stimulants in shaping the modern West.

At once panoramic and richly detailed, The Pursuit of Pleasure examines both the intoxicants known since ancient times—wine and opiates—and the stimulants introduced later—tobacco, coffee, and tea—from multiple angles. It brings together production, commerce, and consumption to reveal the forces behind the spread and popularity of these consumables, showing how Iranians adapted them to their own needs and tastes and integrated them into their everyday lives.

[Rasputin]

Sunset of Empire
Stories from the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi

Volume III
Author: translated by Dick Davis from the original text by Abolqasem Ferdowsi




Among the masterpieces of world literature, perhaps the least familiar to English readers is the Persian Book of Kings (Shahnameh, in Persian). This prodigious national epic, composed by the poet Ferdowsi between 980 and 1010, tells the story of ancient Persia, beginning in the mythic time of Creation and continuing forward to the Arab-Islamic invasion.
With our third and final volume of stories from the Shahnameh we move from mythology and legend to romanticized history. Here the mighty events that shook ancient Persia from the time of Alexander of Macedon’s conquest to the Arab invasion of the seventh century C.E. are reflected in the stirring and poignant narratives of Ferdowsi, the master poet who took on himself the task of preserving his country’s great pre-Islamic heritage. We see vast empires rise and fall, the rule of noble kings and cruel tyrants, the fortunes of a people buffeted by contending tides of history. Larger than life individuals are vividly depicted—the impulsive, pleasure-loving king Bahram Gur, the wise vizier Bozarjmehr, the brave rebel Bahram Chubineh, his loyal defiant sister Gordyeh, and many others—but we also see many vignettes of everyday life in the villages and towns of ancient Persia, and in this part of the Shahnameh Ferdowsi indulges his talent for sly humor much more than in the earlier tales. The poem rises to its magnificent climax in its last pages, when the tragic end of an era is recorded and Ferdowsi and his characters look with foreboding towards an unstable and fearful future.
Breathtaking miniatures from the finest Persian Shahnameh manuscripts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many of them published here for the first time, heighten the emotional impact of the text.

[Rasputin]

In the Dragon's Claws

In the Dragon's Claws

The Story of Rostam and Esfandiyar

Author: Jerome Clinton




In this story, Esfandiyar, the designated heir to the throne of Iran, has just returned in triumph from his campaign against the shah of Turan. He has slain Arjasp, Iran's greatest enemy, captured his family and treasury, and liberated his own sisters from their captivity. He expects that his father, Goshtasp, will now abdicate the throne of Iran in his favor as he had sworn to. Goshtasp, however, is not yet ready to honor his promise. Instead he sets his son yet another task as a condition of his abdication. He must bring Iran's greatest hero, Rostam, back to the court in chains. Rostam has neither come to the court of Iran to honor Goshtasp, nor has he sent him a letter declaring his loyalty. Esfandiyar recognizes this is simply a means to put his own life at risk, and says as much. Yet he cannot refuse his father's command.

The story of Rostam and Esfandiyar displays a surprisingly modern skepticism about the values we associate with Ferdowsi's epic. It expresses a profound ambivalence about the demands of heroism, and is sharply critical of a monarch who exploits the courage and loyalty of his heroes to further his own selfish ends.

[Rasputin]

The Persian Sphinx
Amir Abbas Hoveyda and the Riddle of the Iranian Revolution

Author: Abbas Milani




Who lost Iran? How and why did a country, never richer, never more educated, its women never more liberated erupt in a fundamentalist revolution? the answer can be found in the enthralling life and tragic death of one man.

Amir Abbas Hoveyda was a central figure in the historic struggle between modernity and tradition in Iran -- a struggle pitting Western cosmopolitanism against Persian isolationism, secularism against religious fundamentalism, and ultimately civil society and democracy against authoritarianism.

Born in Tehran in 1919 to a family of solid middle class comforts and faded aristocratic roots, Hoveyda was an elegant, cultivated, well-read, and witty man, educated in Beirut, London, and Brussels.

After entering the Iranian foreign service in 1942, he served in France, Germany, and Turkey, then returned to Iran in 1956 to join the National Iranian Oil Company. In 1965, the shah appointed him the country's prime minister. Hoveyda would serve faithfully in that post for thirteen years.

Amir Abbas Hoveyda embodied the aspirations, the accomplishments and also the failures of a whole generation of Iranian technocrats -- mostly Western-trained -- who sought to free Iran from the travails of poverty and repression and guide it into the modern age. Hoveyda would be both a leader and a victim of that effort. On the eve of the Islamic Revolution, the shah, attempting to turn the rising tide of revolt by offering a scapegoat, ordered the prime minister's arrest. When the Pahlavi regime fell, Hoveyda chose not to flee, voluntarily surrendering to the new Islamic authorities. His hope was for a public trial; instead the infamous "Hanging Judge" presided over a secret and summary trial.

In telling the story of Hoveyda's life, the author has not only laid bare the development of Iranian society during a pivotal period (1919*1978 but has also unearthed important new material on U.S.-Iranian relations. From 1957 onward, Amir Abbas Hoveyda played critical roles in dealing with U.S. foreign policy and fundamentalist Islamic opposition in Iran. Through careful use of hitherto-unexamined archival materials, unpublished letters, and personal journals, along with extensive interviews with more than a hundred of Hoveyda's relatives, friends, and foes, the author has brilliantly caught the pathos and passion of Hoveyda's life and times.

The Persian Sphinx is biography at its most powerful and will reward the scholar and the general reader alike.

[Rasputin]

The Lion and the Throne

Stories from the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi Vol. I

Author: translated by Dick Davis from the original text by Ferdowsi





Among the masterpieces of world literature, perhaps the least familiar to English readers is the Persian book of Kings (Shahnameh, in Persian). This prodigious national epic, composed by the poet Ferdowsi between 980 and 1010, tells the story of ancient Persia, beginning in the mythic time of Creation and continuing forward to the Arab-Islamic invasion in the seventh century. the lion and the throne covers the first third of the shahnameh and will be followed by two volumes to complete the epic. Brilliantly translated and magnificently illustrated, these volumes give English-language readers access to a world of vanished wonders.
The origins of civilization…the notion of kingship…tenderness, a longing for justice, and social order…the first kings felled by foolish pride…demons on the throne…spiritual heroes and their martial virtues…mythical birds…romance and passion—these are some of the threads woven together to form the rich tapestry of ancient Persia. Translator Dick Davis combines his skills as a poet and a Ferdowsi scholar to evoke the metrical music, impact, and nuance of Ferdowsi’s monumental poem.
Breathtaking miniatures from the finest Persian Shahnameh manuscripts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries heighten the emotional impact of the text. A short afterword by the eminent art historian Stuart Cary Welch unravels the history behind these paintings.

[Michellica]

wow man bayad inara hatman bekhoonam!heyf ke inja peyda nemishe bayad beram alman ya france bekharameshoon!

[Rasputin]

From Persia To Napa
Wine at the Persian Table

Author: Najmieh Batmanglij

with:Wine and Persian Poetry by Dick Davis & Pairing Wine with Persian Food by Burke Owens




Wine is seen as the natural partner of many great cuisines, but few people associate it with Persian food, one of the world’s most sophisticated culinary traditions. The ties, in fact, are age-old. From Persia to Napa: Wine at the Persian Table (Mage; $50; 264 pages, with 160 color photos) weaves together history, poetry, a look at modern viniculture, and a wealth of recipes and wine pairings to celebrate the rightful relationship of wine and food on the Persian table.
“Whoever seeks the origins of wine must be crazy,” a Persian poet once declared, implying that simple enjoyment of this greatest gift of the grape ought to be enough. Since he wrote those words, however, winemaking has been traced all the way back to the northern uplands of the Fertile Crescent some seven millennia ago, the start of a journey that would take it across the Near East and then into Europe in the dawning years of civilization. Iran was one of the nurseries of the wine grape, and, as empires rose and fell there, princes, priests, poets and people in ordinary walks of life all embraced wine in various ways. After Islam came to Iran, wine drinking sometimes slipped from public view, but it never disappeared.
In this lavishly illustrated book, Najmieh Batmanglij explores that long and eventful history, then shifts her story to California’s famed Napa Valley, half a world away. There, in a kind of up-to-the-minute homage to the past, an Iranian-American named Darioush Khaledi uses the latest vinicultural techniques to make superb wines at a winery reminiscent of Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the ancient Persian empire.

[Rasputin]

Garden of the Brave in War

Recollections of Iran

Author: Terrence O'Donnell





When Terence O’Donnell, an American who lived in Iran for fifteen years in the 1960s and 1970s, was asked what he was doing there, he replied, "The conviction of all Iranians, of most of my compatriots, and indeed of the Russians, was that I was engaged in intelligence work. I was, and what is more I filed a daily report. My employer was myself and my reports consisted of eight thousand pages of journal. This book was drawn from that material."


For ten of those years, O’Donnell lived on a farm near Shiraz, in southern Iran, where he raised mainly pomegranates, but also quinces, grapes, chickens, and bees. He also made many Iranian friends. His memories of that time have yielded a masterpiece of national portraiture, wonderfully alive to the complexities of the Iranian character—courteous, capricious, deeply religious yet also playful, generous, and poetic. A work of shimmering beauty and sensitivity, Garden of the Brave in War will deepen every reader’s understanding of the often elusive country that lies behind the headlines

[Rasputin]

Daneshvar's Playhouse

Daneshvar's Playhouse

A Collection of Stories

Author: Simin Daneshvar




These stories not only portray, with incomparable perception, humor, and compassion, women from the various strata of Iranian society, but they also capture the essence of a rich traditional culture undergoing change. A nanny lets go of a little girl's hand in Shiraz's exotic and crowded Vakil Bazaar, and goes off to flirt with the nutseller--the child is lost. In The Accident, the author portrays, in hilarious parody, a young woman who forsakes husband, children, and home just to own a car. The Playhouse is a traditional Persian theater where the play and the players act on many levels both real and fantastic. The Traitor's Intrigue lets you into the life of a middle-class couple and brilliantly shows how a colonel's allegiance passed from Shah to Khomeini. To Whom Can I Say Hello? tells of an old woman's memories, her life, love, tragic outcome, and eventual hope. Loss of Jalal is a moving chronicle of the final days of Jalal Al-e Ahmad, one of Iran's great writers and the author's husband. Simin Daneshvar draws from over a thousand years of Persian storytelling tradition and combines this with modern techniques of short fiction and cinema. The result is both entertaining and a key of uncompromising honesty, rich detail, and a dazzling range of voices that guides the reader into the center of a complex society and its concerns.

[nikania]

Thanks for the info

[Rasputin]

The Film of Makhmalbaf
Cinema, Politics and Culture in Iran

Eric Egan

[Rasputin]

Crowning Anguish
Memoirs of a Persian Princess from the Harem to Modernity 1884-1914
Authors: Edited and Introduced by Abbas Amanat


The life of Taj al-Saltana, daughter of the ruler of Iran, Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, epitomized the predicaments of her changing era. Overcoming her limited education within the harem walls, Taj chronicled a thirty-year span in the life of a generation that witnessed a shift from traditional order to revolutionary flux. It is as though she had chosen this moment to recall her personal history--a tale filled with "wonder and anguish"--in order to record a cultural and political leap, symbolic of her time, from the indulgent, sheltered, and often petty world of her father's harem to the puzzling and exposed, yet emotionally and intellectually challenging world of a new Iran.

Now almost one hundred years later Taj's memoirs are relevant and qualify her not only as a feminist by her society's standards but also in comparison with feminists of her generation in Europe and America. Beyond her fascination for the material glamors of the West at the turn of the twentieth century--fashion, architecture, furniture, the motorcar--she was also influenced by Western culture's painting, music, history, literature and language. And yet throughout this time she kept her bond with her own literary and cultural heritage and what she calls her "Persianness."

[Rasputin]

Goli Khalatbary
March 26 .2006

[Rasputin]

Persian Greeting Cards From Ancient Persian, timeline reprinted .

[Rasputin]

Hamid Dabashi
September 2006