The Colonel A Novel

by Dowlatabadi, Mahmoud; Patterdale, Tom

• ISBN13: 9781612191324
• ISBN10: 1612191320
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-05-08
• Publisher: Melville House

Summary

A new novel by a master of Iranian letters-often rumored to be a contender for the Nobel Prize-that directly engages politics in Iran today Ten years in the writing, this fearless novel-so powerful it's banned in Iran-tells the stirring story of a tortured people forced to live under successive oppressive regimes. It begins on a pitch black, rainy night, when there's a knock on the Colonel's door. Two policemen have come to summon him to collect the tortured body of his youngest daughter. The Islamic Revolution is devouring its own children. Set over the course of a single night, the novel follows the Colonel as he pays a bribe to recover his daughter's body and then races to bury her before sunrise. As we watch him struggle with the death of his innocent child, we find him wracked with guilt and anger over the condition of his country, particularly as represented by his own children: a son who fell during the 1979 revolution; another driven to madness after being tortured during the Shah's regime; a third who went off to martyr himself fighting for the ayatollahs in their war against Iraq; one murdered daughter, and another who survives by being married to a cruel opportunist. An incredibly powerful novel about nation, history and family, The Colonel leaves no taboo unbroken.

Author Biography

MAHMOUD DOWLATABADI is one of the Middle East’s most important writers. The author of numerous novels, plays, and screenplays, he is also a leading proponent of social and artistic freedom in Iran.

Born in 1940 in a remote farming region of Iran, the son of a shoemaker, his early life and teens were spent as an agricultural day laborer until he made his way to Tehran, where he started working in the theater and began writing plays, stories and novels. He is the author Missing Soluch, published by Melville House and his first work to be translated into English, and a 10-book portrait of Iranian village life, Kelidar. The Colonel has been shortlisted for the Haus der Kulturen Berlin International Literary Award and longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize.