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Esta brillante colección es ideal para que los más pequeños aprendan, casi sin darse cuenta, los colores, las formas, los números y los contrarios con la ayuda de sus bichos favoritos.
Summary
Soon to be a major motion picture starring Adrien Brody and Salma Hayek
In the aftermath of the Iranian revolution, rare-gem dealer Isaac Amin is arrested, wrongly accused of being a spy. Terrified by his disappearance, his family must reconcile a new world of cruelty and chaos with the collapse of everything they have known. As Isaac navigates the terrors of prison, and his wife feverishly searches for him, his children struggle with the realization that their family may soon be forced to embark on a journey of incalculable danger.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Sofer's family escaped from Iran in 1982 when she was 10, an experience that may explain the intense detail of this unnerving debut. On a September day in 1981, gem trader Isaac Amin is accosted by Revolutionary Guards at his Tehran office and imprisoned for no other crime than being Jewish in a country where Muslim fanaticism is growing daily. Being rich and having had slender ties to the Shah's regime magnify his peril. In anguish over what might be happening to his family, Isaac watches the brutal mutilation and executions of prisoners around him. His wife, Farnaz, struggles to keep from slipping into despair, while his young daughter, Shirin, steals files from the home of a playmate whose father is in charge of the prison that holds her father. Far away in Brooklyn, Isaac's nonreligious son, Parviz, struggles without his family's money and falls for the pious daughter of his Hasidic landlord. Nicely layered, the story shimmers with past secrets and hidden motivations. The dialogue, while stiff, allows the various characters to come through. Sofer's dramatization of just-post-revolutionary Iran captures its small tensions and larger brutalities, which play vividly upon a family that cannot, even if it wishes to, conform. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
"Sofer's enlightening debut opens with the 1981 arrest of Isaac Amin, a Jewish businessman in Iran accused of being a Zionist spy. His arrest was not unexpected. Isaac has seen neighbors and family members disappear and knows the remnants of the shah's entourage businessmen and communist rebels alike are seen as enemies by the Revolutionary Guards. Sofer illuminates the horrific details of Isaac's months in prison and deftly captures how that experience affects the rest of his family his wife and daughter Shirin at home and son Parviz in New York, where he has quickly fallen from son of a wealthy man to starving shop boy. In the midst of their depressing circumstances, the author nestles small jewels of hope, like the delivery of leftovers by the wife of Parviz's landlord, or the repaired shoes, picked up weeks late by Shirin, waiting patiently for Isaac's feet to fill them once again. Sofer herself emigrated from postrevolutionary Iran to New York, and her debut resonates with the empathy derived from that journey."--"Donovan, Deborah" Copyright 2007 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
A MEMORABLE title will surely attract readers, but when a book becomes a classic, it's hard to say whether the title has been part of its canonization or has merely become retroactively canonical. Would "Trimalchio in West Egg," one of Fitzgerald's initial choices, have in time accrued the same force as "The Great Gatsby"? "The Septembers of Shiraz," poignant once you've read this first novel by Dalia Sofer, is, on its own, a title at once overly poetic and misleading. An American reader might be forgiven for thinking Sofer has written a romance set in the Napa Valley, "Sideways" with Vaseline on the lens. And that would be a great shame because "The Septembers of Shiraz" is a remarkable debut: the richly evocative, powerfully affecting depiction of a prosperous Jewish family in Tehran shortly after the revolution. In this fickle literary world, it's impossible to predict whether Sofer's novel will become a classic, but it certainly stands a chance. Told in the third person, largely in the present tense, the intersecting narratives follow each member of the Amin family over the course of their most difficult year, from September 1981 to September 1982. Isaac, the paterfamilias, is approaching 60. A successful jeweler and gem merchant, he has - to his grave discredit and danger - been patronized by many in the aristocracy, including the wife of the shah. In the opening chapters, he is arrested by two armed Revolutionary Guards, taken from his office at lunchtime on a routine workday: "He looks down at his desk, at the indifferent items witnessing this event - the scattered files, a metal paperweight, a box of Dunhill cigarettes, a crystal ashtray and a cup of tea, freshly brewed, two mint leaves floating inside." From this beginning, Sofer deftly interweaves Isaac's experiences with those of the other members of his immediate family: his wife, Farnaz; his 9-year-old daughter, Shirin; and his 18-year-old son, Parviz, who has been sent to New York to study architecture. The book's simple plot is immediately engaging: What will become of Isaac Amin? Will he survive the brutally byzantine, surreal game that his incarceration becomes? Will he die by accident or from illness or torture? What allows one prisoner to survive while his cellmate faces the firing squad? Meanwhile, outside the prison, Farnaz searches for her husband and struggles to maintain their household: Will she find word of him? Will she and her daughter escape the scrutiny of the Revolutionary Guards? How can her life continue - and yet how can it not? The Amins' young daughter is caught between an adult perceptiveness and a child's belief in magical thinking. "Absence, Shirin thinks, is death's cousin. One day something is there, the next day it isn't. Abracadabra." But "what happens to a house full of nonbeings?" What if she, her mother and the housekeeper should disappear, just like her father? "The house, of course, would not know it. That would be the sad part." Shirin's brother, Parviz, strapped for cash in Brooklyn, reduced to working in his Hasidic landlord's hat shop, has a more practical dismay: "Why is it, he wonders, that no one understands his situation? This is not how his life was supposed to turn out. Only two years ago he was debating between an architecture school in Paris and another in Zurich, and his parents were considering buying him an apartment. ... That he should now be a burden on others both angers and shames him." The Amins' acute daily struggles are laced with deeper emotional and philosophical questions. Before their tragic separation, Isaac and Farnaz had reached a state of near estrangement: both felt their marriage had made them people they hadn't wanted to be. To transcend their ordeals, each must confront what has transpired between them and what is still possible in the future. Isaac and his son, in their very different contexts, are also forced to consider and question their secularism: Isaac because he is persecuted on account of an inherited religion he does not practice, and Parviz because he falls in love with his landlord's daughter. Even Shirin, in her childish realm, becomes embroiled in a risky attempt to save lives, only to find that the simplest bonds of friendship will save her own life. "No one came to my house as often as you did," says her friend Leila, explaining why she has chosen to safeguard Shirin. "I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to you." The ironies of the Amins' lives are evident even to themselves: under the shah's regime, the family enjoyed unthinking privilege and prosperity. Their reasons for staying in Tehran at the time of the revolution are not so far from those given by Isaac's sister and her husband: "If we leave this country without taking care of our belongings, who in Geneva or Paris or Timbuktu will understand who we once were?" For Farnaz, her belongings define her, giving shape to her memories: "These objects, she had always believed, are infused with the souls of the places from which they came, and of the people who had made or sold them. On long, silent afternoons ... she would sit in her sun-filled living room and look at each one - the glass vase, a reminder of Francesca, in Venice; the copper plate, a souvenir of Ismet, in Istanbul; the silver teapot, a keepsake from Firouz, in Isfahan." There is no intrinsic merit in the Amins' ideologically unconsidered existence. And the arguments of the Revolutionary Guards as well as the beliefs of Farnaz's disgruntled housekeeper and Parviz's landlord cast doubt on their former hedonism. But just as Shirin's friend chooses to save her because of the pleasure of their play, the novel repeatedly suggests that life's significance derives less from ideas than from the most basic, the most concrete shards of memory. Sofer is particularly good at illuminating the sensual experiences of her characters - the way that, in extremis, memory and experience are resolved into colors, sounds or scents. After Farnaz visits a local prison in the unsuccessful hope of finding her husband, "she walks for a long time through the city. Above her, windows and balconies close, shutting out the cool September breeze. Summer is leaving, and with it the buzz of ceiling fans, the smell of wet dust rising through the air-conditioning vents, the clink of noontime dishes heard through open windows, the chatter of families passing long, muggy afternoons in courtyards, eating pumpkin seeds and watermelon." When Shirin looks at the now empty swimming pool in the family's backyard, "she remembers swimming in it, in the shallow end, while Parviz and his friends dove from the terrace into the water. ... Afterward, when they had showered and dressed, they would gather around the kitchen table smelling of soap and chlorine, and eat cherries picked that morning from the garden, just washed and dripping in the sieve." Early in the novel, Isaac is badgered by fellow prisoners about his religious beliefs. "So what if I wanted a good life?" he replies. "My belief is that life is to be enjoyed." To bolster his argument, he recites a few lines of poetry: "Give thanks for nights in good company." Although strategically naïve, Isaac's argument is recognizably true, and emotionally forceful. Sofer writes beautifully, whether she's describing an old man's "wrinkled voice" or Shirin's irritation at wearing a head scarf, imagining "there are tiny elves inside ... crumpling paper against her ears all day long." And she tells her characters' stories with deceptive simplicity. Every member of the Amin family attains a moving, and memorable, depth and reality. Although their crises - and the philosophical questions they raise - are of the greatest urgency and seriousness, "The Septembers of Shiraz" is miraculously light in its touch, as beautiful and delicate as a book about suffering can be. 'Absence is deaths cousin,' a young Iranian concludes. 'One day something is there, the next day it isn't.' Claire Messud's most recent novel is "The Emperor's Children."
Kirkus Review
An Iranian Jew waits wrongly accused in prison while his family slowly crumbles in Tehran and New York. In the wake of the Iranian Revolution, as the Ayatollah Khomeini's Republic is first being established, gem dealer Isaac Amin is arrested near his opulent Tehran home. Technically accused of being an Israeli spy, Isaac's real crimes are his religion and his personal wealth. As his interrogators try to break him with physical abuse and neglect, Isaac is most tortured by the memories of his family, with whom he is allowed no contact. On the homefront, the situation is similarly bleak. Isaac's beloved wife Farnaz tirelessly seeks information about her husband, and in doing so, begins to question the loyalty of the family's trusted maid, Habibeh, whose son (a former employee of Isaac's) has become an ardent member of the Republic. Isaac and Farnaz's precocious young daughter, Shirin, decides to take matters into her own hands, risking the family's lives when she steals confidential files from a classmate's home in the hopes of saving her uncle from the same fate as her father. And, an ocean away, son Parviz feels the strains in different ways, when both information and money from his family suddenly stops. He takes a room and job with a welcoming Hassidic man in Brooklyn, and, against his better judgment, falls in love with the daughter, Rachel. Eventually, Isaac triumphs over his accusers by bribing his way out of prison with a gift of his life savings. But the family's troubles are hardly over, and as they try to make their way out of the country to reunite their family overseas, young Shirin's well-intentioned plan threatens to curtail all their efforts. Sofer's characters are immensely sympathetic and illustrate plainly and without pretense the global issues of class, religion and politics following the Iranian Revolution. As intelligent as it is gripping. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
In Sofer's debut novel, Isaac Amin, a Jewish businessman in Tehran, is imprisoned following the Iranian Revolution. As Amin attempts to survive his brutal treatment and convince his captors that he is not a Zionist spy, his wife, young daughter, and son (a college student in New York City) find various ways to cope with the radical change in their way of life and the knowledge that they may never see Amin again. This is a story that needs to be told, as a reminder of how political and religious ideologies can destroy individuals, families, and societies. Yet the Amins are not portrayed as innocent victims but flawed human beings who closed their eyes to the injustices of the monarchy under which they benefited. The family and political issues raised in the book are timely and ripe for discussion; this should be a popular book club choice. Recommended for all public libraries.-Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
The Septembers of Shiraz Chapter One When Isaac Amin sees two men with rifles walk into his office at half past noon on a warm autumn day in Tehran, his first thought is that he won't be able to join his wife and daughter for lunch, as promised. "Brother Amin?" the shorter of the men says. Isaac nods. A few months ago they took his friend Kourosh Nassiri, and just weeks later news got around that Ali the baker had disappeared. "We're here by orders of the Revolutionary Guards." The smaller man points his rifle directly at Isaac and walks toward him, his steps too long for his legs. "You are under arrest, Brother." Isaac shuts the inventory notebook before him. He looks down at his desk, at the indifferent items witnessing this event--the scattered files, a metal paperweight, a box of Dunhill cigarettes, a crystal ashtray, and a cup of tea, freshly brewed, two mint leaves floating inside. His calendar is spread open and he stares at it, at today's date, September 20, 1981 , at the notes scribbled on the page-- call Mr. Nakamura regarding pearls, lunch at home, receive shipment of black opals from Australia around 3:00 PM, pick up shoes from cobbler --appointments he won't be keeping. On the opposite page is a glossy photo of the H-afez mausoleum in Shiraz. Under it are the words, "City of Poets and Roses." "May I see your papers?" Isaac asks. "Papers?" the man chuckles. "Brother, don't concern yourself with papers." The other man, silent until now, takes a few steps. "You are Brother Amin, correct?" he asks. "Yes." "Then please follow us." He examines the rifles again, the short man's stubby finger already on the trigger, so he gets up, and with the two men makes his way down his five-story office building, which seems strangely deserted. In the morning he had noticed that only nine of his sixteen employees had come to work, but he had thought nothing of it; people had been unpredictable lately. Now he wonders where they are. Had they known? As they reach the pavement he senses the sun spreading down his neck and back. He feels calm, almost numb, and he reminds himself he should remain so. A black motorcycle is parked by the curb, next to his own polished, emerald-green Jaguar. The small man smirks at the sleek automobile, then mounts his motorcycle, releases the brake, and ignites the engine. Isaac mounts next, with the second soldier behind him. "Hold on tight," the soldier says. Isaac's arms girdle the small man and the third man rests his hands on Isaac's waist. Sandwiched between the two he feels the bony back of one against his stomach and the belly of the other pushing into his back. The bitter smell of unwashed hair makes him gag. Turning his head to take a breath, he glimpses one of his employees, Morteza, frozen on the sidewalk like a bystander at a funeral procession. The motorcycle swerves through the narrow spaces between jammed cars. He watches the city glide by, its transformation now so obvious to him: movie posters and shampoo advertisements have been replaced by sweeping murals of clerics; streets once named after kings now claim the revolution as their patron; and once-dapper men and women have become bearded shadows and black veils. The smell of kebab and charcoaled corn, rising from the street vendor's grill, fills the lunch hour. He had often treated himself to a hot skewer of lamb kebab here, sometimes bringing back two dozen for his employees, who would congregate in the kitchen, slide the tender meat off the skewers with slices of bread, and chew loudly. Isaac joined them from time to time, and while he could not allow himself to eat with equal abandon, he would be pleased for having initiated the gathering. The vendor, fanning his grilled meat, looks at Isaac on the motorcycle, stupefied. Isaac looks back, but his captors pick up speed and he feels dizzy all of a sudden, ready to topple over. He locks his fingers around the driver's girth. They stop at an unassuming gray building, dismount the bike, and enter. Greetings are exchanged among the revolutionaries and Isaac is led to a room smelling of sweat and feet. The room is small, maybe one-fifth the size of his living room, with mustard-yellow walls. He is seated on a bench, already filled with about a dozen men. He is squeezed between a middle-aged man and a young boy of sixteen or seventeen. "I don't know how they keep adding more people on this bench," the man next to him mumbles, as though to himself but loudly enough for Isaac to hear. Isaac notices the man is wearing pajama pants with socks and shoes. "How long have you been here?" he asks, deciding that the man's hostility has little to do with him. "I'm not sure," says the man. "They came to my house in the middle of the night. My wife was hysterical. She insisted on making me a cheese sandwich before I left. I don't know what got into her. She cut the cheese, her hands shaking. She even put in some parsley and radishes. As she was about to hand me the sandwich one of the soldiers grabbed it from her, ate it in three or four bites, and said, 'Thanks, Sister. How did you know I was starving?'" Hearing this story makes Isaac feel fortunate; his family at least had been spared a similar scene. "This bench is killing my back," the man continues. "And they won't even let me use the bathroom." Isaac rests his head against the wall. How odd that he should get arrested today of all days, when he was going to make up his long absences to his wife and daughter by joining them for lunch. For months he had been leaving the house at dawn, when the snow-covered Elburz Mountains slowly unveiled themselves in . . . The Septembers of Shiraz . Copyright © by Dalia Sofer. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
