In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs - A Memoir of Iran

Informationen zum Autor Christopher de Bellaigue has worked as a journalist in South Asia and the Middle East, writing for the Economist and the Financial Times , the Independent , and the New York Review of Books . His first book, In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs , was short-listed for the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize, and his second, Rebel Land , was short-listed for the 2010 Orwell Prize. He and his wife divide their time between London and Tehran. Zusammenfassung Beside the highway that leads south from Tehran, the necropolis of Ayatollah Rudollah Khomeini rises from the sweating tarmac like a miraculous filling station supplying fuel for the soul. However, the paint is peeling even before the complex has been completed, and the prayer halls are all but deserted. Iran's Islamic Revolution is out of gas, but what has happened to the hostage takers, suicidal holy warriors, and ideologues who brought it about? These men and women kicked out the Shah, spent eight years fighting Saddam's Iraq, and terrified the West with its militancy and courage. Now they are a worn-out generation. In this superbly crafted and thoughtful book, Christopher de Bellaigue gives us the voices and memories of these wistful revolutionaries. Mullahs and academics, artists, traders, and mystics: the author knows them as an insider -- a journalist who speaks fluent Persian and is married to an Iranian -- and also as an outsider -- a Westerner isolated in one of the world's most enigmatic and impenetrable societies. The result is a subtly intense revelation of the hearts and minds of the Iranian people -- and what it is to live among them.

Product details

• Authors: Christopher de Bellaigue
• Publisher: Harper Collins Usa
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 04.01.2005
• EAN: 9780066209807
• ISBN: 978-0-06-620980-7
• No. of pages: 304
• Dimensions: 155 mm x 229 mm x 26 mm
• Subjects: HISTORY / Middle East / General, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Process / General, POLITICAL SCIENCE / World / Middle Eastern, TRAVEL / Middle East / General, Travel and holiday guides, Biography: philosophy and social sciences, Political leaders and leadership, ISLAMIC STUDIES: HISTORY & POLITICS, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY: Political, HISTORY: Middle East / General, HISTORY: MIDDLE EAST, TRAVEL: Middle East / General, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Arab & Middle Eastern