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My Father's Notebook: A Novel of Iran
When he was a boy, Aga Akbar, the deaf-mute illegitimate son of a Persian nobleman, traveled with his uncle to a cave on nearby Saffron Mountain. Once there, he was to copy a three-thousand-year-old cuneiform inscription--an order of the first king of Persia--as a means of freeing himself from his emotional confinement. For the remainder of his life, Aga Akbar used these cuneiform characters to fill a notebook with writings only he could understand. Years later, his son, Ishmael--a political dissident in exile--is attempting to translate the notebook . . . and in the process tells his father's story, his own, and the story of twentieth-century Iran.
A stunning and ambitious novel by a singular literary talent, My Father's Notebook is at once a masterful chronicle of a culture's troubled voyage into modernity and the poignant, timeless tale of a son's enduring love.
Book Details
- Publisher: Harper Perennial
- Publish Date: Mar 27th, 2007
- Pages: 336
- Language: English
- Edition: undefined - undefined
- Dimensions: 7.96in - 5.26in - 0.98in - 0.74lb
- EAN: 9780060598723
- Categories: • Literary• Epistolary (Letters, Diaries, etc.)• Historical - General
About the Author
Kader Abdolah is a pen name created to honor friends who died under the oppressive Iranian regime. The author of three novels, two short story collections, and numerous works of nonfiction, Abdolah joined a secret leftist organization while a student in Teheran. In 1988, at the invitation of the United Nations, he came to the Netherlands as a political refugee.
Praise for this book
"A field guide to present day Iran... MY FATHER'S NOTEBOOK is a winning, courtly tale of Persian culture." -- Buffalo News
"Wonderful... Blends contemporary realism with Persian folklore, mirroring Iran's... history through the eyes of a father and his son." -- Houston Chronicle
"MY FATHER'S NOTEBOOK, a lovely novel, has the cadence of a fairy tale and the clarity of truth ." -- Wall Street Journal
"A storyteller of utmost subtlety and natural ease." -- Times Literary Supplement
"Moving and illuminating . . . The history of Iran in the 20th century glints through." -- Publishers Weekly
"An intimate portrait... Abdolah's prose... is clean and lyrical... A sweeping novel that chronicles the tumultuous modern history of [Iran]." -- Kirkus Reviews
"Myth and unlovely reality meet and mingle... Conveys the heartache of an exile who cannot help but feel a traitor." -- Christian Science Monitor
"Beautiful and poetic." -- Library Journal
"Remarkable . . . Moving, dreamlike . . . Scenes are beautifully rendered." -- Providence Journal