A novel by the acclaimed and prize-winning director of the film Kandahar, Le Jardin de cristal is the story of disadvantaged people living in poverty on land requisitioned for the families of those who fought during the Iran/Iraq war. Each character has suffered, either directly or indirectly, as a direct consequence of this war.

The novel begins with Layeh, the young widow of the martyred Mansour, giving birth to their third child. Alone, in the darkness of the house once filled with their shared intimacy and happiness, she gives way to the agony of a painful and protracted labor while her trembling children look on. Cast off by her family as one less mouth to feed, Layeh struggles to care for and raise her family on her own. As the novel progresses, we read the stories of other women affected by the war: Malayheh, only twenty-two, is married to the invalid Hamid, without hope of ever bearing his children. Bound by a sense of duty, she lives in torment in a marriage that owes more to pity than to love. Souri, another young widow, tries to make the best of things while living in her antagonistic mother-in-law’s home while dreaming of finishing her studies in order to pursue a career and, hopefully, self-sufficiency. Through these moving and affectionately drawn portraits, this powerful new novel unveils the private and formerly unknown aspects of poet-revolutionary life in Iran.

It is these women, especially, that make their deepest impression upon us, characters worthy of a Greek tragedy, alternating between revolt and resignation, torn between traditional submission and personal freedom. Mohsen Makhmalbâf, one of Iran’s best-known novelists and filmmakers, delivers here a very affecting vision of Iranian society, one that defies all of our expectations. Through these stirring and simply-told stories emerges the pattern of a much larger collective destiny.