The Drum Tower
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- ¥1,800
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- ¥1,800
発行者による作品情報
The Drum Tower is Farnoosh Moshiri's fourth work of fiction concerned with the deleterious effects of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. This novel, told by a mentally ill, 16-year-old girl, depicts the fall of Drum Tower, the house of a family descended from generations of War Ministers. Rich in characters-Talkhoon, who struggles to control the winds she hears inside her head and who tells the story; Assad, a man made evil by his love for her; Anvar Angha, Talkhoon's grandfather who has devoted his life to writing a book about the Simorgh (the mythical bird of knowledge; the Persian Phoenix) but never completes it; Soraya, Talkhoon's mother, whom we never meet but about whom myriad and contradictory stories abound-and rich in family secrets, this novel chronicles the early days of the revolution, the ruthlessness and opportunism of the competing factions, the rise of the Revolutionary Guard, the chaos and murder in the streets of Tehran, the arrests and executions, as experienced by the members of this family. The Drum Tower may be compared, favorably, to Gone with the Wind. It has already won two Barbara Deming Memorial Fund Fiction Awards and a Black Heron Press Award for Social Fiction. It has been licensed to the United Kingdom's Sandstone Press which will publish the British Commonwealth edition simultaneous with the Black Heron Press edition.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Iranian-born novelist Moshiri (At the Wall of the Almighty) combines Persian history, sexual politics, and ancient lore in this gripping saga about the dissolution of an aristocratic Iranian family on the eve of the 1979 revolution. Set largely in an ancestral residence called the Drum Tower "the biggest and oldest house in Tehran" the story follows Talkhoon, one of two girls at the end of a line of government officials stretching back to the time of Nader Shah in the 18th century. Orphaned and deemed "crazy" following a failed suicide attempt, the 16-year-old Talkhoon becomes a captive (and possible future wife) of Assad, a volatile man thought to be her uncle. While Assad, a member of the Revolutionary Guard, sets about converting the Drum Tower into a headquarters plundering its treasures and evicting Talkhoon's grandmother, Khanum-Jaan Talkhoon plots her escape, even as she laments the fact that she will have to leave behind her comatose grandfather, Baba-Ji, a scholar obsessed with a mythical bird called the Simorgh. Talkhoon also ponders the whereabouts of her older sister, Taara, whose letters inform Talkhoon that she is both homeless and pregnant. Though Moshiri fails to develop Talkhoon's professed and oft-referenced madness fully, she creates a memorable heroine. By shaving her head and dressing in men's clothes to aid her escape, Talkhoon combats not only the oppression of theocratic government but also the strictures of gender.
