Anahita Firouz: In the Walled Gardens

By PAT BASKETT

Firouz was born in Iran, educated in Boston and Paris and lives in the United States. These things show in her writing of this novel set in the days of the Shah when Iran was a hot-bed of revolutionary factions pitted against that corrupt, western-oriented regime. It was a complex time of profound change, with an older generation lamenting a lost way of life.

Firouz's invocation of these different aspects is affected by her need to make them explicit for a western readership, and this, in turn, interferes with the portrayal of her characters - a western-educated woman from a traditional family, married to a corrupt businessman, and a childhood sweetheart who has become a left-wing revolutionary.

The love story that the book's blurb promises is nothing more than a hard sell. Which is a pity - more heart and less dogma would bring these characters to life.

Where the book does succeed is in showing the effects of turmoil and insecurity on Iranian society. Islam, fundamentalism, women in burqas are hardly mentioned.

Flamingo

$34.95

* Pat Baskett is an Auckland journalist.