Book Club Discussion Questions
For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Shariar Mandanipour and our BookBrowse Review of Censoring an Iranian Love Story.
Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
About This Guide
The questions, discussion topics, and reading list that follow are intended
to enhance your reading group's discussion of
Censoring an Iranian Love Story,
the first novel published in English by the award-winning Iranian writer
Shahriar Mandanipour.
About This Book
From one of Iran's most acclaimed and controversial contemporary writers
comes a dazzlingly inventive work of fiction.
Censoring an Iranian Love Story
opens a revelatory window onto what it's like to live, to love, and to be an
artist in today's Iran.
The novel entwines two equally powerful narratives. A writer named Shahriar-the
author's fictional alter ego-has struggled for years against the all-powerful
censor at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Now, on the threshold of
fifty, tired of writing dark and bitter stories, he has come to realize that the
"world around us has enough death and destruction and sorrow." He sets out
instead to write a bewitching love story, one set in present-day Iran. It may be
his greatest challenge yet.
Beautiful black-haired Sara and fiercely proud Dara fall in love in the dusty
stacks of the library, where they pass secret messages to each other encoded in
the pages of their favorite books. But Iran's Campaign Against Social Corruption
forbids their being alone together. Defying the state and their disapproving
parents, they meet in secret amid the bustling streets, Internet cafés, and lush
private gardens of Tehran.
Yet writing freely of Sara and Dara's encounters, their desires, would put
Shahriar in as much peril as his lovers. Thus we read not just the scenes
Shahriar has written but also the sentences and words he's crossed out or merely
imagined, knowing they can never be published.
Laced with surprising humor and irony, at once provocative and deeply moving,
Censoring an Iranian Love Story takes us unforgettably to the heart of one
of the world's most alluring yet least understood cultures. It is an ingenious,
wholly original novel-a literary tour de force that is a triumph of art and
spirit.
Reader's Guide
- What do you think are the aims of this novel? How does its unique
structure reflect the ideas-and sometimes even the arguments-the author is
trying to make?
- The view of Iran with which we are typically presented comes straight
from the newspaper headlines-a journalist imprisoned, a diplomatic quandary,
issues surrounding the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and so on. How does
this novel-a story of individuals trying to create art, to live and to love
on a daily basis-challenge these snapshots?
- How does the epigraph reflect the novel's themes?
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- How does the author develop themes of identity and belonging throughout the narrative?
- What role does the setting play in shaping the characters' decisions and relationships?
- Discuss how the ending reframes the events of the story. Were you surprised?
Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Vintage.
Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.
Book Reviewed by:
