The Prince [Paperback]

Hushang Golshiri (Author), James Buchan (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 5, 2006

In mid-1920s Iran in a crumbling house in a provincial town, the last survivor of a deposed dynasty is slowly dying from tuberculosis. The old prince's domain has been reduced to his domestic household, where the former glories of his ancestors haunt him. Drifting in and out of reality, the prince relives episodes of his forbearers’ exulted and often brutal past; a macabre time of public despotism when men were put to death by being sheathed in plaster, and when a child might be beheaded as punishment for poor schoolwork. Long-dead relatives threaten menacingly from photographs the old prince surrounds himself with, damaged images fleetingly brought to life by a fractured hallucinatory mind, only to fade away as another vestige from the past rattles in its picture frame. As hazy memories bleed into one another, it soon becomes clear that the most torturous for the dying man is that of his wife Fakronessa, who used to taunt him with the energy and violence of his grandfather and great-grandfather, forcing him then to avenge himself by sleeping with their servant Fakhri, and subsequently driving his wife to an early grave.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“There is no denying the power of Golshiri’s writing . . . This is one of the most disturbing novels I have read in a long time. It’s made all the more unsettling for being sensational only in the skill of its telling.”
–Rosemary Goring, Glasgow Herald

About the Author

Hushang Golshiri (1937-2000) was born in Isfahan, Iran. He worked as a teacher, published a collection of short stories and edited a literary journal. In 1978 he travelled to the USA, but returned the following year to become a leading writer and critic of post-revolution Iran.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Random House UK (December 5, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099468395
• ISBN-13: 978-0099468394
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,765,371 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars pretty effin' boring, July 21, 2010

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Caraculiambro (La Mancha and environs) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Prince (Paperback)

I have no idea why I bought and read this: I think I remembered hearing somewhere that it was considered one of the really important Iranian novels of the last 100 years. From what I understand, this book is done to death in Iranian high schools and middle schools, along the lines of Steinbeck's "The Red Pony," Melville's "Billy Budd," and Twain's "Huck Finn."

There's not much of a plot. The main character is an old Qajar prince who is close to death and meditates upon his life and his family's history in his chambers, while a series of hallucinatory images from the past come to visit and speak with him. The novel bends reality to the point where you have to pay strict attention: it's not clear who's alive and dead, for example. Prince Ehtejab's wife Fakhronissa, for example, is dead from the start of the novel, whereas his servant, Fakhri, is not. Nevertheless they interact with each other without the narrator clarifying one is a phantom.

The big theme of the book is nothing more complex than that the aristocracy is corrupt and morally empty. (Basically this is accomplished by having the hoary prince chase his housekeeper throughout the book.) This is probably why the current government of Iran doesn't have many objections to this book, even though it was published ten years before the Revolution and even though the author himself was on the outs with the Khomeinists for a time. That's all past, though: this book is canon now.

It's a short book, about 150 pages. The translation does not seem to flow smoothly. I would read the introduction by the translator before starting, though. Golshiri does assume you're familiar with the history of Persia in the 20th century. If you're not, you're going to find this quite disorienting.