From Publishers Weekly
This portrait of the Islamist revolution's heartland is far from the "axis of evil" caricature so often associated with the regime that held Americans hostage in 1979–1980 and is actively pursuing nuclear arms today. Rather, Ballaigue, who covers Iran for the Economist, presents a textured view of a complex society, struggling with an ancient culture, a radical ideology and a Westernized elite. Drawing inspiration from George Orwell, who chronicled the Catalonian revolution of the 1930s and its betrayal by Stalinists, Ballaiguecharts the Islamist revolution from its origins in the repressive regime of the Shah and the fiery sermons of the Ayatollah Khomeini, through its triumph and the taking of the hostages of the "Great Satan," the war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the Iran-Contra scandal and the waning of the Islamist revolutionary fervor as educated Iranians became disillusioned with the mullahs and thirsted for greater cultural and intellectual freedom. The book is peppered with interviews with and vignettes of the many Iranians the author has met during his years in Iran; the title refers to a cemetery in Tehran where the martyrs of the Iran-Iraq war are interred—"rose garden" being an ironic rendition of rows of headstones. (On sale Jan. 4) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
If Pollack's Persian Puzzle [BKL D 1 04] is the policy wonk's view of today's Iran, British journalist de Bellaigue's memoir is closer to the ground. Outsiders might see Iran as an emerging nuclear threat, but de Bellaigue also sees a country terribly spent from decades of autocratic rule, revolution, ultrafundamentalism, a ruinous war with Iraq, the Iran-Contra scandal, and ongoing hostilities with America. The author, who lives in Iran and writes for the New York Review of Books and the economist, discusses these issues at length, but he also guides us through city streets and into the lives of Iranian citizens. There is Mr. Zarif, who agitated for the Ayatollah's return to Iran and now wonders why his Iranian-manufactured Paykan car is so poorly built. And the war veteran Amini, whose forehead carries 60 pieces of shrapnel and who has resigned himself to letting Esfahan teens dance in public. Readers will find here a detailed picture of Iranian life that has too long been out of reach. Alan Moores
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Newsweek
"Incisive analysis... Through eloquent human stories, Bellaigue frames the murky politics of Iran in a telling, intimate scale."
BusinessWeek
"A highly original and complex portrait of the Islamic republic."
Booklist
"Readers will find here a detailed picture of Iranian life that has too long been out of reach."
San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
"An intimate exploration of the revolution’s denouement...The intellectual honesty de Bellaigue brings to bear is worthy of praise."
Times Literary Supplement
"An important book that deserves to be read by both defenders and detractors of the Islamic republic."
Pico Iyer, New York Times Book Review
"De Bellaigue is a defiantly literary writer, and he gives us a sense of Tehran [that is] immediate and insistent."
Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
"Powerful...impressionistic glimpses of everyday life in Iran...De Bellaigue narrates the unexpected trajectory of these individuals’ lives with verve."
Washington Post Book World
"De Bellaigue’s . . . anecdotes and interviews provide tremendously valuable context for many of today’s headlines."
Book Description
Beside the highway that leads south from Tehran, the necropolis of Ayatollah Rudollah Khomeini rises from the sweating tarmac like a miraculous filling station supplying fuel for the soul. However, the paint is peeling even before the complex has been completed, and the prayer halls are all but deserted.
Iran's Islamic Revolution is out of gas, but what has happened to the hostage takers, suicidal holy warriors, and ideologues who brought it about? These men and women kicked out the Shah, spent eight years fighting Saddam's Iraq, and terrified the West with its militancy and courage. Now they are a worn-out generation.
In this superbly crafted and thoughtful book, Christopher de Bellaigue gives us the voices and memories of these wistful revolutionaries. Mullahs and academics, artists, traders, and mystics: the author knows them as an insider -- a journalist who speaks fluent Persian and is married to an Iranian -- and also as an outsider -- a Westerner isolated in one of the world's most enigmatic and impenetrable societies.
The result is a subtly intense revelation of the hearts and minds of the Iranian people -- and what it is to live among them.
In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs: A Memoir of Iran FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Beside the highway that leads south from Tehran, the necropolis of Ayatollah Rudollah Khomeini rises from the sweating tarmac like a miraculous filling station supplying fuel for the soul. However, the paint is peeling even before the complex has been completed, and the prayer halls are all but deserted. Iran's Islamic Revolution is out of gas, but what has happened to the hostage takers, suicidal holy warriors, and ideologues who brought it about? These men and women kicked out the Shah, spent eight years fighting Saddam's Iraq, and terrified the West with its militancy and courage. Now they are a worn-out generation." In this book, Christopher de Bellaigue gives us the voices and memories of these wistful revolutionaries. Mullahs and academics, artists, traders, and mystics: the author knows them as an insider - a journalist who speaks fluent Persian and is married to an Iranian - and also as an outsider - a Westerner isolated in one of the world's most enigmatic and impenetrable societies. The result is a subtly intense revelation of the hearts and minds of the Iranian people - and what it is to live among them.
FROM THE CRITICS
Michiko Kakutani - The New York Times
Where Rose Garden is most powerful is in giving us impressionistic glimpses of everyday life in Iran. As a British journalist who writes for The Economist, The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, Mr. de Bellaigue experiences the suspicion of Westerners evinced by so many Iranians. He gripes about being suspected of being a British spy, and he complains about the culture's elaborate, seemingly hypocritical mores - like sanctioning "temporary marriages" and "prudential dissimulation" ("the right to lie about one's beliefs as long as the lie is in the wider interests of the faith.")
Publishers Weekly
This portrait of the Islamist revolution's heartland is far from the "axis of evil" caricature so often associated with the regime that held Americans hostage in 1979-1980 and is actively pursuing nuclear arms today. Rather, Ballaigue, who covers Iran for the Economist, presents a textured view of a complex society, struggling with an ancient culture, a radical ideology and a Westernized elite. Drawing inspiration from George Orwell, who chronicled the Catalonian revolution of the 1930s and its betrayal by Stalinists, Ballaigue charts the Islamist revolution from its origins in the repressive regime of the Shah and the fiery sermons of the Ayatollah Khomeini, through its triumph and the taking of the hostages of the "Great Satan," the war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the Iran-Contra scandal and the waning of the Islamist revolutionary fervor as educated Iranians became disillusioned with the mullahs and thirsted for greater cultural and intellectual freedom. The book is peppered with interviews with and vignettes of the many Iranians the author has met during his years in Iran; the title refers to a cemetery in Tehran where the martyrs of the Iran-Iraq war are interred-"rose garden" being an ironic rendition of rows of headstones. (On sale Jan. 4) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
An Anglo-French journalist married to an Iranian woman attempts to reconcile the joys of his adopted land with its grim cruelty. Journalist de Bellaigue, who has written about the Middle East and South Asia for The Economist, The New York Review of Books and other highbrow publications, here turns his eye on the nation he's called home for the past five years: the Islamic Republic of Iran. The author states that he wants to show readers the heart of a country whose people are friendly and lead a rich cultural life, yet also believe-sometimes fanatically-in a religion that glorifies death. And for the most part he accomplishes this goal, giving us a rare glimpse into a world most Westerners would consider bizarre. An Islamic seminarian, for example, steers clear of using his free time at night to memorize incantations, fearing that he will begin to repeat them ceaselessly and go insane. But the same man trusts himself enough to flirt with evil and wonder about the taste of wine, a forbidden indulgence under Koranic law. Such examples can feel like trees in a forest as we plow through episode after episode of exotic Iranian life: athletic clubs with homoerotic overtones, testimonials from soldiers who endured Saddam Hussein's gas attacks, a female activist seeking to avenge the murders of her politically dissident parents. De Bellaigue employs literary devices in his narrative to sometimes powerful effect, as when he describes the way Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution has died but still reverberates through the capital: "Living in Tehran is like listening to the sea in a shell." At other times-for example, when he adopts the first-person voice of a soldier fighting in the Iran-Iraq war-theconceits seem too gimmicky. Never tiresome, however, are his stellar passages on the Iranian side of still-fresh history, including the Iran-Contra scandal. Many of the Iranians involved were executed for dealing with infidels. A welcome, illuminating peak behind the 21st century's equivalent of the Iron Curtain. Agent: David Godwin/David Godwin Associates
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