Novel
Savushun
سووشون
Simin Daneshvar · 1969
Synopsis
Shiraz, in the last years of the Second World War, when the British army occupies the south of the country and the price of food soars. Zari, the young wife of a landowner, mother of a son and twin girls, wants nothing but peace in her home. But her husband Yusof refuses to sell the harvests from his lands to the occupiers or to the rebel tribal chiefs, because he wants first to feed his peasants; around them intrigues are woven, typhus and famine spread, and Zari understands that she can no longer remain passive and fearful.
Context
The novel appeared in Tehran from Kharazmi in the year 1348, that is, in June or July 1969, shortly before the death of the author's husband. Its title distorts the name of an ancient mourning rite of Fars, the lament for Siyavash, hero of the Book of Kings, whose murder brings drought and famine; several first names in the book echo those of the legend. Critics have seen in it a coded political narrative, and some, in its last pages, an allusion to the fall of Mossadegh. Reprinted more than twenty times, it appeared in English in 1990 and in 1991, in German in 1997, in Spanish in 2005, and in many other languages.
Who it is for
About three hundred and twenty pages in English, twenty-three chapters, in simple language tinged with the speech of Shiraz. It is worth knowing that the legend of Siyavash runs beneath the whole book.
Prizes and reception
The first novel written by an Iranian woman, it sold more than half a million copies and is among the most widely read books in the country.