A Nearby Country Called Love Audiobook

A sweeping propulsive novel about the families we are born into and the families we make for ourselves in which a man struggles to find his place in an Iran on the brink of combusting

Amid the alleyways of the Zamzam neighborhood of Tehran a woman lights herself on fire in a desperate act of defiance setting off a chain reaction of violence and protest Haunted by the womans death Issa is forced to confront the contradictions of his own family history throughout which his late brotherHashem a prominent queer artist in Tehrans underground defied theirfather a skilled martial artist bound to traditional notions of honor and masculinity

Issa soon finds himself thrown into a circle of people living on the margins of society negotiating a razorlike code of conduct that rewards loyalty and encourages aggression and intolerance in equal measure As the city explodes around him Issa realizes that it is the little acts of kindness that matter most the everyday humanity of individuals finding love and doing right by one another

Vibrant and evocative intimate and intelligent A Nearby Country Called Love is both a captivating window into contemporary Iran and aportrait of the parallel fates of a man and his countrya man who acknowledges the sullen and rumbling baggage of history but then chooses to step past its violent inheritance