Here are six stories by one of Iran's greatest contemporary writers, rare and intimate glimpses into the lives of ordinary Iranian men and women; windows into the Persian soul. From the delicately painted tragedy of Mehrangiz in A City Like Paradise to the wry comedy of Anis, from two sisters' surreal nocturne in Childbirth to a village boy's broken dreams in Potshards, from a young woman torn between duty and passion in Bibi Shahrbanu to the brilliant and numinous Sutra, each story is told with the detail, clarity of vision, and deeply human compassion characteristic of Daneshvar's finest work. Daneshvar's Iran is a landscape in which the medieval and the modern coexist uneasily. Against this backdrop, the author explores the persistent themes of her nearly five decades as a writer: themes of sexual and racial identity, the social relations of wealth and poverty, the workings of memory and dreams. The lives of her characters-here, some of her most subtly realized-are determined by conditions and norms over which they have little or no control; still, in the end, Sutra offers a vision of hope. These stories are a major addition to Daneshvar's works in translation, Daneshvar's Playhouse and Savushun.

These stories not only portray, with incomparable perception, humour, and compassion, women from the various strata of Iranian society, but they also capture the essence of a rich traditional culture undergoing change. A nanny lets go of a little girl's hand in Shiraz's exotic and crowded Vakil Bazaar, and goes off to flirt with the nutseller -- the child is lost. In The Accident, the author portrays, in hilarious parody, a young woman who forsakes husband, children, and home just to own a car. The Playhouse is a traditional Persian theatre where the play and the players act on many levels both real and fantastic. The Traitor's Intrigue lets you into the life of a middle-class couple and brilliantly shows how a colonel's allegiance passed from Shah to Khomeini. To Whom Can I Say Hello? tells of an old woman's memories, her life, love, tragic outcome, and eventual hope. Loss of Jalal is a moving chronicle of the final days of Jalal Al-e Ahmad, one of Iran's great writers and the author's husband. Simin Daneshvar draws from over a thousand years of Persian storytelling tradition and combines this with modern techniques of short fiction and cinema. The result is both entertaining and a key of uncompromising honesty, rich detail, and a dazzling range of voices that guides the reader into the centre of a complex society and its concerns.

Twenty-six-year-old college graduate, artist, and employee of the Ministry of Art and Culture, Hasti Nourian aspires to be a "new woman"-independent-minded, strong-willed, and in control of her own destiny. A destiny that includes Morad, an idealistic young architect and artist with whom Hasti is deeply in love. Morad is a sharp critic of Iran's Westernized bourgeois class, the one that Hasti's mother relishes. After Hasti's father died, her mother married a wealthy businessman and moved to an exclusive neighborhood of northern Tehran. Socializing with a mixed group of Americans, English-speaking Iranians, and British expats, her mother's life revolves around gym visits, hairdressers, and party planning. When her mother persuades Hasti to join her at the spa, she introduces her to Salim, an eligible young man from a wealthy family whose British education and proper comportment, as well as his economic status make him an ideal suitor for Hasti in her mother's eyes. Against her better judgment, Hasti finds herself attracted to Salim and tempted by her mother's comfortable lifestyle. As the novel unfolds, Hasti is torn between her first love and the radical politics of her university friends, and love for her mother and the freedom economic security can bring. Set in Tehran in the mid-1970s, just a few years before the 1977-79 revolution, Daneshvar's unforgettable novel depicts the tumultuous social, cultural, and economic changes of the day through the intimate story of a young woman's struggle to find her identity.

a? ? A very engaging saga...a? ? a? ? Washington Post Book World a? ? A powerfully resonant work...a? ? a? ? Publishers Weekly a? ? Outstanding foreign fiction...a? ? a? ? USA Today Savushun (pronounced a? ? sa-voo-shoona? ? ) is a folk tradition, surviving in Southern Iran from an undateable pre-islamic past, that conjures hope in spite of everything. The novel chronicles the life of a Persian family during the World War II Allied occupation of Iran. It is set in Shiraz, a town which evokes images of Persepolis and pre-islamic monuments, the great Persian poets, the shrines, sufis and nomadic tribes all within a historical web of the interests, privilege and influence of foreign powers, corruption, incompetence and arrogance of persons in authority. The story is seen through the eyes of Zari, a young wife, and mother, who copes with her idealistic husband while struggling with her desire for traditional family life and her need for an individual identity. simin daneshvar lives and continues to write in Iran.