Rooftops of Tehran

In a middle-class neighborhood of Iran’s sprawling capital city, 17-year-old Pasha Shahed spends the summer of 1973 on his rooftop with his best friend Ahmed, dreaming about the future and asking burning questions about life. Pasha is also wrestling with a crushing secret: he has fallen in love with his beautiful neighbor, Zari, who has been betrothed since birth to another man. Despite Pasha’s guilt for loving her, the long, hot days transform their tentative friendship into a rich, emotional bond. The bliss of one perfect, stolen summer is abruptly shattered in a single night when Pasha unwittingly guides the Shah’s secret police to their target: Zari’s intended. The violent consequences awaken Pasha and his friends to the reality of life under the rule of a powerful despot, and lead Zari to make a shocking choice from which Pasha may never recover. In poignant, breathtaking prose, Mahbod Seraji’s stunning debut novel lays bare the beauty and brutality infused into the centuries-old Persian culture, while reaffirming the human experiences we all share: laughter, tears, love, helplessness and above all, hope.