The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran: Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026 by Shida Bazyar

The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar is a polyphonic novel that traces one family’s experience of upheaval and exile across several decades. This edition has been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026.

Key details

• By Shida Bazyar
• Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026

Synopsis

Spanning 1979, 1989, 1999 and 2009, this multi-voiced narrative follows a family shaped by flight from Iran and a later return. In 1979, Behzad is a young communist revolutionary involved in clandestine political action after the Shah’s expulsion, and he falls in love with Nahid.

By 1989, the couple are building a life in West Germany while listening for news of those who vanished into hiding after the mullahs came to power. In 1999, Laleh travels back to Iran with her mother and confronts a Tehran that unsettles her memories, before 2009 brings renewed turmoil as the Green Revolution erupts. A topical, moving novel of revolution, oppression, resistance and an uncompromising desire for freedom, suited to adult readers.

Rackhams Reference : 7N9IS42DEW