Symphony of the dead
By: Abbas Maroufi ; translated by Lotfali Khonji.
Publisher: Aflame Books
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Wiltshire, U.K
Language: eng
Number of pages: 272
ISBN-13: 9780955233968
Subjects: Family -- Iran -- Fiction.
Genres: Fiction.
Work titles: Samfūnī-yi murdagān
Description: A contemporary version of the Cain and Abel story, this novel was greeted with widespread praise when it was first published in Iran in 1989. Set in the northern town of Ardabil in the aftermath of the Second World War, the story begins as Urhan Urkhani, a prominent citizen of the town, sets out to find his brother in a midwinter snowstorm. Over the course of that day-long search, the entire history of the family is revealed in four symphony-like movements. Told through the rotating viewpoints of the family patriarch and each of his four children, the family's misfortunes become the mirror of a paternalistic and oppressive society that pits brother against brother, encourages a father to denounce a son and burn his poems, forces a daughter to remain in an unhappy marriage, and abandons the last child to a mysterious hidden existence.--From publisher description.
Notes: "First published in Persian in 1988 as Samfoni-e Mordegan"--T.p. verso.