Tehran, Revolution Road

The well-off Fattah, although not a real doctor, has risen to become a surgeon and head of the clinic. His specialty: sewing torn hymens back together. When he falls in love with one of his patients, the seventeen-year-old Shahrsad, who is promised to the young Mustafa, a conflict arises. Both Fattah and Mustafa are loyal supporters of the regime. Mustafa is a guard and torturer in the notorious Evin prison, which Shahrsad is completely unaware of, and Fattah has also worked there. A dramatic development unfolds. In this novel, the first of his Tehran trilogy, Amir Hassan Cheheltan succeeds in painting a highly vivid, realistic, nuanced, and occasionally graphic picture of post-revolutionary Tehran. Exciting and entertaining, full of irony and sarcasm, and perfectly crafted narratively, this novel presents a wealth of impressive characters, offering a portrait of the cruelly beautiful metropolis and an impression of the violence of Iranian history.