The Shipwrecked

A collection of short stories by Iranian women writers that capture the fear, defiance, and enduring struggle of life under an oppressive regime.

The 1979 Iranian Revolution was an event that shocked the world. After thousands of years of Persian monarchy, the Iranian people seized power and instituted a strict secular Islamic regime. The revolution sent the despised Shah into exile, put the Ayatollah Khomeini into power, and resulted in the Iran Hostage Crisis.

In all the upheaval, little thought was given to the women who, even after helping install the new regime, would have to face a new kind of oppression in their homes and in the public square.

Here, the voices of those women are heard. Evoking the enormous isolation of daily existence, and the persistence of a people living under a repressive regime, these literary gems—many by prize-winning authors—reward us with an inside view of a turbulent and closed society.