The Septembers of Shiraz: A Novel

Dalia Sofer

Oct 2009 · Harper Collins

About this ebook

In the aftermath of the Iranian revolution, rare-gem dealer Isaac Amin is arrested, wrongly accused of being a spy. Terrified by his disappearance, his family must reconcile a new world of cruelty and chaos with the collapse of everything they have known.

As Isaac navigates the tedium and terrors of prison, forging tenuous trusts, his wife feverishly searches for him, suspecting, all the while, that their once-trusted housekeeper has turned on them and is now acting as an informer. And as his daughter, in a childlike attempt to stop the wave of baseless arrests, engages in illicit activities, his son, sent to New York before the rise of the Ayatollahs, struggles to find happiness even as he realizes that his family may soon be forced to embark on a journey of incalculable danger.

A page-turning literary debut, The Septembers of Shiraz simmers with questions of identity, alienation, and love, not simply for a spouse or a child, but for all the intangible sights and smells of the place we call home.

Ratings and reviews

I couldn't put the book down. The writing was imaginative, well constructed and an excellent first novel for Dalia Sofer. Perhaps the end flagged a little in that there were no last minute hitches to the escape from Iran by Isaac, his wife Fernaz and their daughter Shirin. Nevertheless, the story flowed throughout and gave an insight into how people are caught up in crisis situations when roles in society are often reversed and those in upper echelons are brought down while those the in lower echelons rise to power.

Very interesting book about life in Iran....the fall from success to failure because of the wrongful imprisonment of the father. April 30, 2011

I thought that this book was well-written and a real page turner. The story kept my interest and the characters were well developed. Highly recommend this book.

About the author

Dalia Sofer was born in Iran and fled at the age of ten to the United States with her family. She is the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award and has been a resident at Yaddo. A graduate of the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College, she lives in New York City.