Persian Dream

March 2006 (RALEIGH, NC) - Maryam Tabibzadeh has released a fascinating family saga of life in Persia (Iran) that spans the 20th century. Persian Dreams follows the individual lives of family members across generations, exploring the intimate details of life in Iran during this period. Through the loves and losses of the characters and the telling and retelling of the family's stories, the reader can experience Persian culture from the inside.

From the architecture of the houses to the rules governing relationships between men and women, the texture of this rich culture permeates the book, interweaving the realities of the time and place with the fictional lives of this family. Highlighting the importance of poetry in Persian culture, the novel features poems and songs throughout that speak of the love, tragedy, and joy these characters experience over the years.

Speaking from a place of great familiarity with the culture, Tabibzadeh takes the reader through time, showing how the culture changes from one generation to the next. Through her characters, she offers keen insights into the lives of women in this society and how changes in the political climate have affected their lives and roles over the years.

Describing the sources of inspiration and material for her novel, Tabibzadeh credits "a tangle of facts and fiction which came from my research for my thesis in 1976; my observation of more than 30 years living in that culture; and the stories I heard from friends."

The resulting novel offers readers a glimpse at an Iran that is much deeper than the headlines and much broader than the preconceptions that dominate Western media. The complexity of the Iranian Revolution comes to life through characters who must make tough decisions in difficult times and who bear the costs of imperfect solutions. Though the novel takes place exclusively in the 20th century, this only delineates how recently (and rapidly) this culture has gone through significant changes. Yet, there are also indications of how the past continues to inform the present and how stubbornly unchanging some cultural practices are, especially in the case of women who must struggle to find their place in Islam and still be free to follow their own destinies.

Maryam Tabibzadeh was born in Darab, Pars, Iran . She received her Master's of Computer Science from SUNY Binghamton in 1983 and is a computer programmer. She has written nonfiction books about the lives of two villages in Iran, 1974-1976. She has also written several short stories and poems that have been published in the Persian Newsletter in Raleigh, NC.