The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran

‘Through cycles of exile and return, we follow an Iranian family across four decades — and learn what it means to always live in hope. The pages … pulse with solidarities and betrayal, with heartache and humour.’

* The International Booker Prize 2026 judges *

‘So lively, so touching, and more relevant than ever. Read it!’

* Cosmopolitan *

‘Bazyar’s stories strike at the aching heart of exile. A pulsing longing for a better future lingers from its first page to its last. A quietly beautiful exploration of the trauma of losing one’s homeland to a savage regime, the novel is testament to how hope and the revolutionary spirit endure in the face of crushing tyranny, how courage cannot be fully stamped out. It lies dormant, awaiting a time when it can again ignite new acts of bravery, new waves of revolution.’

-- Rhoda Kwan * The Saturday Paper *

‘We always think we know something about people, but then Shida Bazyar brilliantly shows us how much we still have to learn.’

-- Olga Grjasnowa, author of City of Jasmine

‘With a clear, sharp eye and plenty of space and feeling for contradictions, Bazyar draws a family portrait of people who have started a new life in a foreign country and are trying to keep something of the old.’

* Books Magazine *

‘A fascinating look at the life of an immigrant family in Germany … Bazyar writes with a brilliant clarity … Special commendation goes to Ruth Martin for her translation.’

* Driftless Area Review *

‘The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran fits the family novel mould in many ways: it spans generations, explores inherited trauma, and depicts the effects of politics on a family … This highly political and touching novel gives a great insight into the political situation in Iran … In translating this vision of authorial omnipotence — of an imagined freedom — Ruth Martin brings Shida Bazyar’s politically urgent and thematically significant voice to English-speaking readers … creating an experience that feels both immediate and compelling.’

-- Ankita Harbola * Reading in Translation *

‘A quietly beautiful book … [With] themes so applicable to any of the decades which have gone before us, and they will be applicable to those yet to come.’

* Dolce Bellezza *

‘Bazyar shows us what it is to feel the loss of the Iranian homeland’s soul and to hope for its recovery. The story invites our sympathy by clothing intergenerational politics in the familiar pains and daydreams of growing up. I cannot imagine anyone conceiving of this lifeworld more beautifully or inviting us into it with more charm and tenderness.’

-- Theodore Ell * ABR *

‘A quietly beautiful exploration of the trauma of losing one’s homeland to a savage regime, the novel is testament to how hope and the revolutionary spirit endure in the face of crushing tyranny, how courage cannot be fully stamped out. It lies dormant, awaiting a time when it can again ignite new acts of bravery, new waves of revolution.’

-- Rhoda Kwan * The Saturday Paper *

‘In this era of bite-sized attention spans, certain novels remind you that it’s worth appreciating, from time to time, the distinctive power of the form … The Nights are Quiet in Tehran, by German-Iranian author Shida Bazyar and translated by Ruth Martin, is just this sort of novel, eschewing easy answers in favour of exploring questions … [a] sprawling novel, which pulsates with life and is jammed with ideas.’

-- Megan Peck Shub * Necessary Fiction *

‘Bazyar shows us what it is to feel the loss of the Iranian homeland’s soul and to hope for its recovery. The story invites our sympathy by clothing intergenerational politics in the familiar pains and daydreams of growing up. I cannot imagine anyone conceiving of this lifeworld more beautifully or inviting us into it with more charm and tenderness.’

-- Theodore Ell * Australian Book Review *

‘Through cycles of exile and return, we follow an Iranian family across four decades — and learn what it means to always live in hope. The pages … pulse with solidarities and betrayal, with heartache and humour.’

-- The International Booker Prize 2026 judges

‘Portrays an Iranian family forced to leave their homeland, capturing a spirit of political resistance as much as the struggle to adapt to life as refugees … Bazyar captures the contradictions of her characters and their predicament with clarity and poise, giving complex and emotionally layered perspectives on exile and return.’

* The Sydney Morning Herald *

‘In this era of bite-sized attention spans, certain novels remind you that it’s worth appreciating, from time to time, the distinctive power of the form … The Nights are Quiet in Tehran, by German-Iranian author Shida Bazyar and translated by Ruth Martin, is just this sort of novel, eschewing easy answers in favour of exploring questions … [a] sprawling novel, which pulsates with life and is jammed with ideas.’

-- Megan Peck Shub * Necessary Fiction *

Praise for Sisters in Arms:

‘A smart, important novel that gives you a caress on the cheek and a punch in the jaw as you read it. The amazing thing is that in the end you want more of both.’

-- Pierre Jarawan author of Song for the Missing

Praise for Sisters in Arms:

‘Shida Bazyar tells us — uncompromisingly, powerfully, and accusingly — what it means to have one’s origins constantly questioned.’

-- Judges’ comments for The German Book Prize

Praise for Sisters in Arms:

‘Humane, relatable, and self-aware, Sisters in Arms is an involving novel that indicts polite neoliberalism and open racism alike for the ways in which people in contemporary societies are forced apart.’

* Foreword Revie