The Quince Seed Potion: A Novel - Hardcover

Baharloo, Morteza

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1882593871 ISBN 13: 9781882593873

Publisher: Bridgeworks, 2004

Synopsis

This novel is set against the backdrop of Iran's turbulent modern history, is a saga of an indentured servant's devotion and love for his masters during the years 1928 to 1981.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

"The Quince Seed Potion" is a novel set against the backdrop of Iran's turbulent modern history and spanning the years 1928 to 1981. It is a saga of the devotion and love, violence and humiliation in the life of Sarveali Jokar, a servant to a great dynastic family of rural landowners. Sarveali is a man whose changing fortunes mirror the changes in Iran and the disintegration of the wealth and power of his masters' family dynasty as the Islamic Revolution of 1979 unfolds. "The Quince Seed Potion" helps us understand the past from which present-day Iranian society emerged and the customs and traditions that shaped the minds of its people. Sarveali, sold into indentured servitude as a youth, dedicates his life to serving the Shirlu khans. They are the only family he knows, and even in the face of contempt and cruelty he remains loyal to his masters through their own travails. His adventures are recounted in a series of episodes reminiscent of the Persian classic "One Thousand and One Nights." His homoerotic affection for his favorite master and boyhood companion, Teimour Khan, although rejected, sustains Sarveali through the years. His adventures, including marriage to a cousin, her repeated promiscuity and eventual murder, his opium addiction and imprisonment, recall the ups and downs of Voltaire's "Candide."

"A vigorous, raunchy tale spanning fifty turbulent years of Iranian history." --Gelareh Asayesh, author of "Saffron Sky: A Life between Iran and America"

"A deeply affecting novel. Sarveali could be one of the dispossessed of the earth, whose tragedy lies in accepting, without questioning, an unjust social system. But maybe this is not fully a tragedy, after all. The weak have weapons, and one of them consists in working to their advantage a fully disadvantageous system." --Edmundo Paz Soldan, author of "The Matter of Desire"

"This is a novel that is simultaneously exotic and familiar, exotic in terms of locale and people but familiar in terms of the trials and tribulations of humans everywhere." --M. K. Ghanoonparvar, professor of Persian and comparative literature, University of Texas, author of "In a Persian Mirror" and "On Islam and Shi'ism

About the Author:

Morteza Baharloo was born in Iran in 1961, emigrated to the United States in 1978, and now lives in Houston. He is chairman and cofounder of Healix, Ltd., a Texas-based international provider of pharmaceutical and healthcare services. Baharloo returns periodically to Iran, where he is restoring rural estates built by his grandfather and great uncles in the 1920s.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bridgeworks
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1882593871
• ISBN 13: 9781882593873
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272