Books in the Media: Shahrnush Parsipur's novel resonates in first-time UK publication

First published in 1989, Shahrnush Parsipur’s Women Without Men (Penguin International Writers) was picked this week after being published in the UK for the first time, translated into English by Faridoun Farrokh. Iranian writer Parsipur has been imprisoned four times – once without charge and once because of her novel "because of its frank depiction of women and sex", wrote John Self at the Times.

The author now lives in exile in California. Women Without Men "takes on a whistle-stop tour of the lives of five Iranian women in the wake of the 1953 crisis when the government of Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown with a lot of help by Britain and America", noted Self. Longlisted for this year’s International Booker Prize, the novel "is not just enlightening but entertaining".

Lucy Popescu at the Financial Times noted the novel’s "continuing resonance". The review concluded: "The book is deceptively simple on the surface, but our reading deepens with context. Parsipur’s irony and mysticism take some getting used to, but as the layers of misogyny are peeled back, the work’s full force emerges". In an interview with Parsipur, the Guardian’s Dina Nayeri wrote: "Parsipur is one of Iran’s most celebrated living writers, and one of our oldest, most original feminists." 

One Day in March (Swift Press), a "meticulous and painstaking account" of the Dunblane shooting on 13th March 1996 by journalist Stephen McGinty, was described as "by turns dry and tortuously detailed, and utterly heartbreaking" by Lucy Denyer writing for the Telegraph. The book is not just an account of the day "but the events that enabled it to happen, and the nationwide repercussions".

Denyer found: "The power of McGinty’s book lies not just in its brutal reconstruction of the day, but in its forensic questions about decisions that were taken – and not taken." It is 30 years since the shooting and "this massacre continues to stir such collective revulsion and horror – feelings that McGinty’s book may bring flooding back [suggesting that] if there was a turning point in Britain’s relationship with guns, it came that cold morning in Scotland in 1996".