Episode Details

Today's Guest on Harshaneeyam is Ruth Martin.

Ruth Martin studied English literature before gaining a PhD in German

She has been translating fiction and non-fiction books since 2010, by authors ranging from Joseph Roth and Hannah Arendt to Volker Weidermann and Shida Bazyar.

She has taught translation at the University of Kent and the Bristol Translates summer school, and is a former co-chair of the Society of Authors Translators Association.

She translated Shida Bazyar’s The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran from German to English – the novel was longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026.

Set across four decades, from 1979 to 2009, this is a polyphonic novel of one family’s flight from and return to Iran.

1979. Behsad, a young communist revolutionary, fights with his friends for a new order after the Shah’s expulsion. He tells of sparking hope, of clandestine political actions, and of how he finds the love of his life in the courageous, intelligent Nahid.

1989. Nahid lives her new life in West Germany with Behsad. With their young children, they spend hour after hour in front of the radio, hoping for news from others who went into hiding after the mullahs came to power.

1999. Laleh returns to Iran with her mother, Nahid. Between beauty rituals and family secrets, she gets to know a Tehran that hardly matches her childhood memories.

2009. Laleh’s brother Mo is more concerned with a friend’s heartbreak than with student demonstrations in Germany. But then the Green Revolution breaks out in Iran and turns the world upside down.

The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran is a moving novel about revolution, oppression, resistance, and the absolute desire for freedom. It was longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026.

Credits for photo © Adrian Pope

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