Bøger af Kader Abdolah

A sweeping, compelling story which brings to life the Iranian Revolution, from an author who experienced it first-hand

A father-son tale set amid the tumultous history of twentieth-century Iran, written by a masterful Iranian novelist in exile

When he was a boy, Aga Akbar, the deaf-mute illegitimate son of a Persian nobleman, traveled with his uncle to a cave on nearby Saffron Mountain. Once there, he was to copy a three-thousand-year-old cuneiform inscription?an order of the first king of Persia?as a means of freeing himself from his emotional confinement. For the remainder of his life, Aga Akbar used these cuneiform characters to fill a notebook with writings only he could understand. Years later, his son, Ishmael?a political dissident in exile?is attempting to translate the notebook . . . and in the process tells his father's story, his own, and the story of twentieth-century Iran. A stunning and ambitious novel by a singular literary talent, My Father's Notebook is at once a masterful chronicle of a culture's troubled voyage into modernity and the poignant, timeless tale of a son's enduring love.

The King, young Shah Naser, takes to the throne of Persia at a turning point of history: he inherits an enchanted medieval world of harems, eunuchs, and treasures as well as a palace of secret doors, sudden deaths, and hidden agendas. Within the court is danger enough: outside all manner of change threatens-industrialization, colonization.  Russia and England conspire to open the King's empire; his mother and his vizier take opposing sides. The poor King-almost an exact contemporary of Queen Victoria-is trapped.  He likes some aspects of modernity (electricity, photography) but can't embrace democracy. He must be a sovereign: he must keep his throne. The King cannot face change and he cannot escape it.With this gleaming and seemingly simple story, breathlessly paced and beautifully told, Kader Abdolah, the acclaimed Iranian émigré novelist, speaks of deeper truths. A novel which has many timely things to say about eras of change and upheaval, The King is an unforgettable book.

An extraordinary novel about the making of modern Iran - Kader Abdolah's The King, already a bestseller in Europe, is now published in English for the first time