International Booker shortlist: Life after the revolution in ‘The Nights are Quiet in Tehran’

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

Shida Bazyar’s novel, The Nights are Quiet in Tehran, translated from the German by Ruth Martin and shortlisted for the 2026 International Booker Prize, assumes greater clarity and urgency given the ongoing Iran–America/Israel war. A general dislike for America and a distrust of Israel have long existed among Iranians, and it is perhaps this, coupled with Iran’s strongman politics, that has resulted in the unexpected upper hand over the America-Israel axis.

1979–2009

Bazyar’s novel follows two generations of a family from 1979 to 2009, through protests against the monarchy and the Shah and Obama’s presidential inauguration. Bookended by these two historical events, a family sifts through exile, migration, and homecoming while organising and hoping for a new dawn.

The story starts in 1979, when the Iranian Revolution is in full swing. American-backed Shah Reza Pahlavi has been ousted. There is no new leader and the Ayatollah’s Islamic movement is gaining strength. There are whispers of not just regime change, but an overturn of Iran’s...

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