Novel
Her Eyes
چشمهایش
Bozorg Alavi · 1952
Synopsis
In 1938, the painter Makan, a figure of the clandestine opposition to Reza Shah, dies in a village in Khorasan where the authorities had banished him; the same authorities give him a state funeral and exhibit his canvases. A portrait of a woman intrigues everyone, since no woman was known in his life. The deputy director of the painting school that bears his name searches for years for the model, until the day an elegant woman, Farangis, comes to see the painting; he promises her the canvas in exchange for the story of what bound her to the master.
Context
The author had drawn two books from his years in prison before this one. The novel appeared in Tehran in 1952 and caused a great stir: praised for its art, it was attacked above all by the author's party comrades, who saw in Farangis only a bourgeois woman in search of adventure. People have thought they recognised in Makan the painter Kamal ol-Molk, who died in retirement in Khorasan, or the Marxist Taqi Arani, and in General Aram a former police chief. The author's works were banned in Iran from 1953 to 1979. The novel has appeared in German in 1959, in English in 1989, in French in 2025, and in Russian and Uzbek, among others.
Who it is for
A little over two hundred pages. It should be known that most of the book is Farangis's own account, and that nothing assures the reader that she tells the whole truth.
Prizes and reception
Regarded by many critics as its author's major contribution to modern Persian fiction; it is the most widely read of his novels.