The Colonel

Winner of the 2013 Jan Michalski Prize
Longlististed for the Man Asian Literary Prize
A new novel by the master of Iranian letters that directly engages politics in Iran today
Ten years in the writing, this fearless novel — so powerful it’s banned in Iran — tells the stirring story of a tortured people forced to live under successive oppressive regimes.
It begins on a pitch black, rainy night, when there’s a knock on the Colonel’s door. Two policemen have come to summon him to collect the tortured body of his youngest daughter. The Islamic Revolution is devouring its own children. Set over the course of a single night, the novel follows the Colonel as he pays a bribe to recover his daughter’s body and then races to bury her before sunrise.