Iran Historical Fiction

Iran presents one of the most significant foreign policy challenges for America and the West, yet very little is known about what the country's goals really are. Vali Nasr examines Iran's political history in new ways to explain its actions and ambitions on the world stage, showing how, behind the veneer of theocracy and Islamic ideology, today's Iran is pursuing a grand strategy aimed at securing the country internally and asserting its place in the region and the world.

A former member of the State Department's Policy Planning Council, Polk describes a country and a history misunderstood by many in the West. While Iranians chafe under the yolk of their current leaders, they also have bitter memories of generations of British, Russian, and American espionage, invasion, and dominance. There are important lessons to be learned from the past, and Polk teases them out of a long and rich history and shows that it is not just now, but for decades to come that an understanding of Iran will be essential to American safety and well-being. 

Three years after the Revolution, Tehran looks like a boneyard. Shahed has returned from California to his homeland to face the ghost of his father, to find out who betrayed him as a child, to recover something that might make him feel alive. Witnessing the brutalities of militant fundamentalists, he wishes his exuberant hustler of a father were alive again to kick the mullahs and their vicious crusade out of Iran. Shahed conjures up his life as a twelve-year-old, superimposing on the grim streets the bizarre exploits of his lusty father and his crazy cohorts in the days of the Shah.

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Saleh Abdoh, the narrator of Out of Mesopotamia, is a middle-aged Iranian journalist who moonlights as a writer for one of Iran's most popular TV shows, but cannot keep himself away from the front lines in neighboring Iraq and Syria. There, the fight against the Islamic State is a proxy war, an existential battle, a declaration of faith, and, for some, a passing weekend affair. After weeks spent dodging RPGs and witnessing acts of savagery and stupidity, he returns to his civilian life of Tehran bookstore readings and trendy art openings, finding it to be unbearably dislocating.

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1953: Der junge Journalist Eddy McLaine und sein Fotograf Bruno Matthiesen machen sich mit einem ausgebauten VW-Bus auf die weite Reise von Deutschland in den Iran. Begeistert von der fremden Welt des Orients und der iranischen Gastfreundschaft, gelingt es den aufgeschlossenen jungen Männern schnell, Kontakte zu knüpfen. Doch der Iran steht am Scheideweg zwischen Tradition und Moderne – Teheran ist ein Pulverfass und Eddy und Bruno sind mittendrin. Wenn jetzt noch herauskommt, dass Bruno und er viel mehr sind als nur Kollegen, könnte es für sie beide lebensgefährlich werden.

One the eve of the Shah of Iran's exile, Siamak and Gazaleh, two young offspring of prominent Iranian families, are joined by marriage. One of their guests is Phillipe, a Frenchman whose parents own a business in Tehran. After the wedding, Phillipe invites his two friends, Rezah and Ashin to Ramsar on the Caspian where his family owns a seaside villa. There, Phillipe receives a disturbing call from his mother.