Enter to win a signed copy of a new novel chronicling one woman's luminous legacy.
Plots. Political intrigue. Treachery. The high-handed actions of omnipotent rulers. Death by decree. That’s the world that Bahiyyih Nakhjavani plunges readers into with The Woman Who Read Too Much: Persia in the mid-nineteenth century, a society that clings to the old ways even as the world around it is rapidly transforming.
A young Shah, personally and politically weak, sits on an uncertain throne, fascinated by modernity even as he fears the Western powers that would deliver it to his nation—for a price. When a female poet, based in part on Tahirih Qurratu’l-Ayn, a historical personality who was also a theologian and revolutionary, dares to reject the veil and begin agitating for female literacy, her campaign shakes the very foundations of Persian society. Nakhjavani tells the story of the poet’s campaign through the eyes of the women of Iran—officially excluded from power, yet finding unexpected, subversive ways to exercise it nonetheless. Through these women, we see a society on the brink of change—and the deadly political maneuvering and violence that will accompany it.
Enter your name and email below for a chance to win one of five author signed copies of the novel which Kirkus describes as a "haunting . . . expertly crafted epic" and, in 2007, was counted among the "best three books" of the year by the Time Literary Supplement (£). Winners will be randomly selected and announced on Friday.
Also see book tour details for Bahiyyih Nakhjavani's The Woman Who Read Too Much.
Comments