Black Parrot, Green Crow - Houshang Golshiri

Until now, only a sparse selection of Golshiri's fiction has been available in English translation -- three short stories, a novella written under a pseudonym, and his novel Prince Ehtejab, which was made into a film. Now, Black Parrot, Green Crow brings together the largest collection of Golshiri's writings in any language -- eighteen short stories and three poems. They span the arc of Golshiri's career as a writer, from his days as a young student in Isfahan under the Pahlavi regime, to the 1980s and 1990s, and the disappointment of Iranian people with the Islamic Republic. Golshiri's stories, crafted with a withering irony, expose the fanatical and draconian political apparatus of tyrannical regimes, while his wry humour and delicate sensitivity to the human condition tempers the blistering satire, making the narratives short but nonetheless harrowing and touching tragedies. The tales are filled with the uncertainty of life in a culture undergoing drastic change, and hauntingly etch the plight of the individual in a climate of political oppression.