Savushun: A Novel about Modern Iran

The original edition of Daneshvar's archetypal Persian novel about the devastating effects of British occupation on southern Iran during WW II has sold more than 500,000 copies since it was first published in 1969. External events--so critical to the narrative's development--are related largely secondhand; told from the perspective of Zari, the wife of an upper-class landowner, the novel examines her highly proscribed role. Zari is a complex figure, unafraid to question her society's mores. When her husband, Yusof, refuses to sell his harvest to the British against the advice of his brother, a collaborator, he sets in motion a chain of events that leads to the novel's explosive and tragic end. Yusof, intrigued by the communist philosophy of the Soviets then occupying northern Iran, agrees to help rebel tribal chieftains and supplies them with food and advice. Against a backdrop of intrigue and infighting, Daneshvar describes Yusof's essential decency and Zari's quiet heroism; Persian folklore and myth are expertly woven into a modern setting in this powerfully resonant work. (Dec.)