[REVIEW] "The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran" by by Shida Bazyar; translated by Ruth Martin

"One day my children can ask me how a revolution happens, and I will serve them up the answer on a silver platter engraved with a gun and sickle. What actually, really happens after a revolution is something I've never heard anyone ask out loud."

"The nights are quiet in Tehran" was a pleasant surprise. I expect the usual romanticization of poverty, oppression and emigration that comes often with this kind of books. Instead I was met with an analytical, multigenerational view of the Iran conflict, which left me more informed as a reader and more empathetic as a person.

I think the comparison with "Women Without Men" is natural and needed to better understand the different points of view proposed by these two authors on very similar themes. Shahrnush Parsipur's a women of the 70s-80s in Iran, and is much more rooted in Persian tradition and culture. This is notable in the fable-like frame of the story, the beauty and poetry of the language, and the heavy presence of symbolism, while being still representative of a violent and gruesome reality.

Shida Bazyar is born in Germany. She originally writes in German, and therefore her style is much more pragmatic, almost american in certain aspects. She focuses on the historical truths of her retelling, on the psychological consequences of forced migration and avoids overly elegant language, especially to portray her younger characters.

I wholeheartedly believe her representation of the conflict is a very needed, breath of fresh air in an environment that can at times even feel romanticizing of oppression and violence. All the characters are presented as complete and clear individuals, whose voice is very distinct across the novel. They have ideals, faults and human passions that at times drive them in the wrong direction; but they are all tied with the red string of Persian heritage. Moreover, I noted with joy a depiction of the female condition as not just subjected to a violent regime, but also celebrated as thinkers, philosophers, politicians. People who have an active role during marches, protests and strikes.

This being said "The nights are quiet in Tehran" is first and foremost, a family novel. The books follows throughout the years Behzad and Nahid's family, forcibly relocated in Germany due to their active participation to the socialist rebellion of 1979. These two characters remain, although at times in the background, the unshaken protagonists of the entire story. At times these book also was heavily reminiscent of "White Teeth" by Zadie Smith, especially in the generational contrast between the siblings and the parents. Other times, I have been able to see the influence of Matar and his "My Friends", especially in the delicate and complex description of long distance relationships between friends and family, who is still at home, under a repressive regime.

I found especially powerful this quote from Behzad's point of view

"Because, although the struggled might have needed me, I was longing for someone familiar. I'm not dead, I wanted to tell Peyman, forgetting that this is something you don't need to say"

Behzad will be taken as dead by some acquaintances, due to a long period of clandestinity and repeated police checks on groups of activists like him. While, in "Women Without Men", death is described as a freeing step that allows women to be reborn with newfound independence, Behzad finds himself resenting those that mistake him for dead. His character feels a strong desire to be heard, be part of history and most importantly to actively contribute to the course of life. Death in this case is not an escape, rather a prison that should be avoided at all costs, as it does not just represent physical absence, but also moral and ethical absence.

In its own way, being forced into leaving is a defeat for Behzad, who will then become a skilled electrician and will continue to cultivate his interest for politics as a private citizens, remaining always active in protests and demonstrations, hoping one day to be able to come back to Iran as a free man.

His wife, Nahid, is also a memorable figure. She is just as much of a fighter and academic ad Behzad is. From her point of view, we get to see her childhood, and adolescence, growing up in Iran, "hiding books under skirts" and studying banned books in secret. She will become an active member of the socialist movement, until, with two kids and one on the way, they will move first to Turkey and then to Germany, to escape the imminent incarceration. Her chapter begins during a barbecue, with a young german couple they have befriended. It shows the difficulties of integration, the hardships in cultural clashes and the arrogance that at time we can display as westerners. It is also well defined her longing for home and community, while feeling isolated from the Iranians in the neighborhood, often very hypocritical and corrupted.

I found genius, once introduced the parents, to allow us to experience these characters again through the eyes of their kids.

Lelah is a teenager at the time of her story, and she is about to board with her mother and her little sister to visit family in Iran for the first time since being a child. Lelah still remembers life in Tehran, but has been ever since quite far removed from that world. We get a sense, that she does not yet fully fit in amongst her German peers, but she was definitely raised closer to a European girl than a Persian teenager.

Through this holiday Lelah discovers a side of her parents she would have never imagined: two brave, idealistic and strong-willed fighters for the freedom of their people and for socialism. She gets to watch her mother slowly ease into her old self, speaking her mother tongue daily and being familiar with the streets of the city. She also meets young people her age, who are all dealing with a quite different adolescence than hers. Most importantly she truly, finally connects with why her parents left, and why they yet seem so longing for their home, The true reason for their fight.

The novel concludes with Mo and Tara's point of views. Mo is the middle son, who did not have the possibility to visit Iran together with his mother and sisters in 1999. I think his detachment and the difference in his attitude compared to Lelah is well expressed in this reflection

"Mo they were saying on TV these are the biggest protests since 1979. Lelah sounds excited, really and truly excited, She talks so naturally about 1979, like she was there. What would she say if she knew that just the dat before yesterday I googled exactly when the Islamic Revolution was."

Mo did not get the opportunity to understand his parents in the same way Lelah did. He presents to the reader a completely different view of his family: an apprehensive and ethnical mother, who asks him silly and archaic questions, a weird and stubborn father, who works hard to integrated himself in society, but still struggles to speak German fluently. An older, sort of legendary sister, who is fiercely political and indipendent. And Tara, who is rebellious, strong willed and active to support Iranian people. It is almost as if, due to his absence during that trip, Mo feels completely alienated from his family and what they seem all so attached to. He appears as completely estranged from the cause. And yet he feels the historical weight of the events unfolding in front of him. He cannot help to panic at the idea of his family being persecuted or harmed, to wonder what will be of his home country so far away and devasted.

The novel concludes itself with Tara, after the announced of another insurgence in Iran. watching her grasp for air and calling as many people as she can, to inform herself of the conditions of her loved ones. 

Iran is described as a continuous, violent cycle of uprisings, change and death, which never truly leads towards freedom, but does not cease to take the breath away from his citizens, even those abroad. "The nights are quiet in Tehran" perfectly describes a feeling of inevitability of tragedy, and yet of hope towards a future that we can only wish better, but that we cannot control.

It was an impactful read, especially in these days of social unrest.

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5