Middle Eastern literature / Persian literature

The Colonel: A Novel

by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi & Tom Patterdale

A new novel by the master of Iranian letters 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...

Missing Soluch: A Novel

by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi & Kamran Rastegar

Perhaps the most important work in modern Iranian literature, this starkly beautiful novel examines the trials of an impoverished woman and her children living in a remote village in Iran, after the unexplained...

A Sky So Close: A Novel

by Betool Khedairi

This haunting coming-of-age story about a girl growing up in wartime Iraq was the subject of heated controversy when it was published in the Middle East; now in English, it offers American readers a rare chance...

Absent: A Novel

by Betool Khedairi

Dalal is a young woman living in a crowded Baghdad apartment with the childless aunt and uncle who raised her. In the same building, Umm Mazin, a fortune-teller, offers her customers cures for their physical...