Peopled with characters of rare power, My Father's Notebook is a triumph. Not only an epic story of Iran's troubled voyage into modernity, it is a magnificent, timeless tale of the bond between a father and son.

Aga Akbar is born a deaf mute in a remote Persian village, on the cusp of his country's forced march into the modern era.

Communicating only in simple sign language, he confounds his mother's despair to make a life as a master carpet mender. He also keeps a notebook: a mysterious chronicle written in a cuneiform script devised by himself and understood by no one else.

Years later Akbar's son Ishmael, exiled in Europe and separated from all he loves most, embarks on the task of deciphering the notebook. Who was this man, his father? And what light will his insights shed on the tumultuous times through which he lived?

'A moving elegy for a lost father and homeland, but also a voice raised against all forms of repression...My Father's Notebook reads like a detective story: information is withheld so that we gradually discover the background to Ishmael's exile.' Guardian