Description: This is the story, based on fact, of a boy who couldn't speak until the age of seven. Now twenty, he describes the events of his life. Four-year-old Shahaab had not started talking and is ridiculed by others who call him dumb. In his innocent and deeply hurt child's mind, his world turns harsh, full of anger and insult. No one in the family can understand Shahaab's wild behaviour except his maternal grandmother, who seems to possess the understanding and the kindness he so desperately craves. Their growing bond leads to a deep friendship in which Shahaab is able to experience some happiness and finally find his voice.
Brief description: Parinoush Saniee is a sociologist and psychologist. She is the author of several novels, including The Book of Fate, which has been reprinted twenty-one times in Iran and is a bestseller in Italy, Romania, and Norway.
Review Quotes:
"Saniee skillfully integrates concepts and theories about the psychology of the child and demonstrates how easy it is to cause, as parents, irremediable damages to a child, but also how easy it is not to cause them.... Shahaab is not only a child who confronts a difficulty, his muteness is in fact that of a nation terrorized by a harsh regime..." -- The Cultural Supplement