Revolution Street

by Amir Hassan Cheheltan

Fattah is middle-aged and unmarried. A former hospital janitor who became rich working as a torturer in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, he now moonlights as an uncertified backstreet doctor specializing in ‘honour surgery’ for unmarried young women. Fattah has nothing but contempt for these women; that is until the beautiful Shahrzad lands on his operating table, and soon he is dangerously infatuated.

Undeterred that she is promised to – and in love with – another man, the younger and less affluent Mostafa, Fattah sets out to win Shahrzad by any means. Robbed of his bride, the jilted and furious Mostafa launches a desperate plan to move her beyond his rival’s reach by falsely reporting her as an opponent of the regime, a mission that takes him deep into Tehran’s underworld of criminals and provocateurs.

Genres: Iran, Fiction

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

امیرحسن چهل‌تن

Amir Cheheltan was born in 1956 in Tehran and has published eight novels, five volumes of short stories and a screenplay. Due to censorship, his first novel, The Mourning of Qassem, was only published in 2003, twenty years after it was written, and many of his novels have had to undergo revisions. Cheheltan supervises the creative writing workshop at the Karnameh Culture Centre in Tehran, and writes feature articles for international papers such as Frankfurter Allgemeine and Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Reviews

[AdiTurbo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fatah makes his living as a doctor who sews back young women’s hymens before they marry. This happens in Teheran, after the Islamic revolution. Even though Fatah hides things in his past that cast dark shadows over his own morality, he allows himself to scold the girls who come into his clinic, and to treat them wdisrespectfully. They are scared and hurting, but he doesn’t care. Till one day, a girl comes into his clinic who has very special eyes, which remind Fatah of his teen love to a beautiful singer. He becomes obsessed with the girl, even though he knows she is about to marry someone else. Fatah and other people in this novel make you sick with their corrupted ways. They see themselves as above the law, and are hypocritical – they allow themselves what they take from others. They stand for a rich, beautiful old culture which has taken a wrong turn. This is a nation with a great history, but the revolution has brought out of it all that is worst in mankind – pure evil, cruelty, lack of empathy, corruption, fanaticism and madness. Facing these characters are all of their innocent victims – those who tried to keep their humanity and values in face of the horrors all around them; those who wanted a quiet and normal life, but were crushed under the revolution’s wheels. They had to be destroyed so as not to remind others of what they had lost, of what they could have been.
An excellent and disturbing novel that is an important warning sign.

[David Raz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Revolution Street by Amir Cheheltan
Hebrew review follows סקירה בעברית בהמשך
The plot of this book occurs in Iran in the 1980's, after the Islamic revolution of 1979. While I did read some books about this period and society (Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood being one I especially recall) this book is different in that it is written, mostly, from the eyes of the Islamic believers, rather than from the eyes of non-believers or westerners. As such, I believe it manages to convey the ambiance much better. It is easy to hate something you don't believe or agree with, but how do the people who do think the Islamic revolution was a good thing feel?
The characters were made interesting by making them ambivalent. While you may be tempted to believe some of the characters are "good" and some are "bad", and get to like some of them more than others, it becomes apparent they are all human.
The writing itself was a bit odd. I read it in the Hebrew translation, which was made directly from Persian, but at some points the grammar felt wrong and I could not follow some of the descriptions. On the other hand, the Hebrew edition includes an afterwards by Dr. Tamar A. Gindin, which sheds light on much of the occurrences, especially the role of women in the story, which is much stronger than what it appears. I hope such afterwards exist in other editions because they are mandatory.
The book is a bit short, but even considering the shortcomings of the writing, I think this is a very worthwhile reading, four stars out of five, for the Hebrew edition. Without the excellent afterwards, I think three stars might be more appropriate.
העלילה של הספר מתרחשת באיראן בשנות השמונים, אחרי המהפכה האסלאמית של 1979. למרות שקראתי כבר ספרים על התקופה הזאת (פרספוליס: סיפורה של ילדות הוא אחד שאני זוכר במיוחד) המיוחד בספר הוא שהוא כתוב מעיניהם של המאמינים המוסלמים ולא מעיניהם של לא מאמינים או של מערביים. ככזה הוא מצליח להעביר את האווירה של התקופה והחברה בצורה יותר ריאליסטית ואמינה. ברור שמי שאינו מאמין במהפכה יסבול מהשינוי, אבל מה מרגישים האנשים ברחוב שכן מאמינים במהפכה?
הדמויות כתובות בצורה מעניינת בכך שהן אמביוולנטיות. למרות שמלכתחילה נראה ברור מי הם התמימים וישרי הדרך ומי הם ה"רעים", מתברר שלכולם יש צדדים לכאן ולכאן – כולם בני אדם. זה כמובן תורם לריאליות.
הכתיבה עצמה קצת מוזרה. אולי זה התרגום שיש בו לא מעט שגיאות ברורות ("התבשיל שקדחתי במו ידי") ואולי זה גם במקור. בשורה התחתונה לא הצלחתי להתעלם מתיאורים מסורבלים ("הוא הקשית מעט את גבו ודחף את ראשו פנימה") ולפעמים על גבול חוסר הפשר. אני בדרך כלל מנסה להתעלם אבל זה חזר במקומות רבים מאוד.
אחרית הדבר מאתר ד"ר תמר א. גינדין מצוינת ותורמת תרומה משמעותית להבנת הרבדים היותר עמוקים של הסיפור ובפרט תפקידן של הנשים בסיפור, שהוא הרבה יותר משמעותי ממה שהוא נראה.
הספר קצת קצר, אבל גם בהתחשב בחסרונות של הכתיבה, אני חושב שהספר ראוי, חשוב ומעניין. ארבעה כוכבים מתוך חמישה.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first chapter of this book is a dramatic introduction to the themes that dominate it namely; women in Iran, the corruption of the revolution, the cruelty and vanity of men. The introduction sees Fattah, a torturer turned medic performing a surgical procedure to restore the hymen of a young Iranian women called Shahrzad who is about to be betrothed. It is a horrible first scene made worse by Fattah offering Shahrzad and her mother a lift home and becoming besotted by her eyes and subsequently seeking her hand in marriage. At the same time Mostafa a young man who is a guard in the local Evin prison seeks her hand in marriage, Mostafa and his boss brutalise women in the prison who have been arrested for any small breach of the religious code. Add to this there is the story of Fattah's mother who has had a sinificant role in the revolution, and the book procceeds to a dramatic ending as the two suitors aims clash. For a book that covers such a dramatic scope it is very readable and it is only as you put it down that you reflect upon the horror of the society and its treatment of women. It was interesting to read someone saying the treatment of Sharzad was analagous to the life of Iran post revolution and I can understand that point as the book reflects on corruption in the shah's regime, the exploitation of religion for cruelty, and the dramatic impact of the Iran- Iraq war. It is well worth a read and I am curious as it is part of a trilogy to see where the author goes next.

[Massimo Monteverdi · Rating 3 out of 5]

E' che i regimi autoritari si assomigliano tutti. Quando arrivano, reprimono con sinistra ripetitività: libera stampa, oppositori politici, costumi sociali aperti. Il punto di vista di un iraniano nell'era degli ayatollah non può essere molto diverso. E infatti le pagine del romanzo si richiamano alla migliore letteratura contro gli oppressi con l'aggiunta di un fatalismo mediorientale commovente.

[Evan Rock · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a priceless gem. The author takes us behind the curtains and the headlines and gives us an honest view of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the people who brought the Islamic Republic to the scene and sustain it. Not sine F. M. Esfandiari wrote of the Iran of the sixties has a book of fiction taken us deep into the psyche and the cultural nuances of that far off land.
This book is a must read book for anyone who wants a true and clear understanding of that civilization.

[Anna Yadgarov · Rating 4 out of 5]

ספר מעניין מאד, במיוחד בהיבט הנשי, למרות שהקול הנשי כמעט ולא נשמע בספר. אחרית הדבר מרתקת (אולי אף יותר מעניינת מהספר עצמו), ומאד עזרה לי להבין את הדברים לעומקם.

[Keziah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received an ARC for free in exchange of a honest review.

I really liked the ambiance of the book. I really could see how 80's Iran was, and in more than one way, made me feel uneasy and sad. In my mind, it's a good thing because that's what the book is trying to achieve. You're supposed to care for the women so poorly treated, and for the young people the Revolution crushed for thinking differently. It really made me feel blessed to live in a era where women and young adult have a place to express their opinions.

I also love that the characters were complex. Nobody is really purely good or bad in this story. Everything is between shades of gray, and it feels a lot more real that way.

On the other side, I didn't like that the novel kept switching in perspectives and time. Yes, sometimes it made me want to continue reading to know what happened to a character, but at most times, it was just too confusing. Also, a lot of character were introduced in the beginning, so it was really hard to keep up with who was whom.

I really liked that everybody was linked in some way, but since there were a lot of people to keep track of, I'm sad to say that I did not enjoyed this at its full potential, since I was always trying to remember where we saw the person before. Also, at times, it seemed a little forced. Like if the author decided in the middle of his book that EVERYBODY would be linked. I could become a bit far-fetched.

Another thing, the narrator uses a lot of mature language to describe what's happening. It's okay if a character is speaking, but I found it a bit odd when it was an omnipresent narrator cursed.

Finally, the punctuation, the grammar and the syntax were wrong in a lot of place. And since English is not my mother tongue, it needs a lot of mistakes to bother me.

But, I would recommend this book to anyone that likes characters-type book, without too much action, and who likes to learn about the 80's Muslim culture.

[A. S. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I received this book as part of the Goodreads Giveaways program.

I really wanted to like this book. But it has the opposite problem of most books I rate poorly. Most books I rate poorly, I rate poorly because they're too long and require an editor who is ruthless with her red pen. This book, on the other hand, needed a lot more background for me to be convinced about the plot and characters' circumstances. There are glimpses into the terrifying lives women lead during and after the Iranian Revolution, and Shahrzad, the woman whose predicament starts the story, barely speaks at all. I get it--it's a metaphor for how women in that society are so obviously seen (hard to miss a chador-wrapped figure) but are never heard. But we get so little insight into Shahrzad's and her mother's lives that I'm less able to connect to them than the female prisoner who gets tortured at the prison. The grand battle between Fattah and Mostafa over Shahrzad takes place only in the last few chapters, and Fattah barely tries to curry Shahrzad's favor. Overall, it needed more substance for me.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A difficult, troubling book about the violence in Iran, both political and interpersonal. Although I read it quickly, this was a rather difficult read. I wondered if that was the fault of the translation but really don't know. None of the characters seemed real and I don't think that was just a cultural misunderstanding. Many scenes of terrible violence which, unfortunately, I suspect are rather accurate.

[Shalini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amir Cheheltan recently introduced me to modern Iranian literature on BBC Goodreads, and I am enjoying it having just read Zoya Pirzad. This is a powerful story, and Shahrzad represented Iran herself. The language does not do complete justice to the story and I can't help wondering if something was lost in translation.

[Tsippora · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like tge kind of books that describe what happens in rural countries byt that author is an actual insider! This book was eye opening to the ongoing problems in Iran (and other muslim countries) about what the life of a woman is worth. this book was mainly written from the point of view of men. except for one chapter that was from the point of view of female muslim exteremist.

[Elisa Donati · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is suggested to people that love direct book, "raw". Every description is pure, every word is required and essential. We feel part of the book. As a woman I felt naked, without the possibility of deciding of my destiny. It is a strong book, strongly suggested to other women and yo who wants to know more on Iran and its culture.

[Angelo Vassallo · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was not really easy to read it, since there are many digressions, which sometimes distract your attention. It is really impressive how the women in Iran are not master of themselves. Their life and death are in the hand of few crazy men...

[Orit Ezuz Erez · Rating 4 out of 5]

read in Hebrew טהרן, רחוב המהפכה