Keddie, U.C.L.A.

    This book discusses the art of Persia in all its variety, relating it to the political and economic issues of the time.

    Retreating east, she visits the buried cities and rock-hewn churches of Cappadocia on the first of a number of hired, borrowed or bought horses, the ideal liberating companions for her unconventional style of travel.While the snow still clothes the eastern mountains, the Long Rider moves further east over the border into Iran, to a ranch breeding miniature Caspian horses near the Russian frontier, to the salt desert villages of the south-east, and on into Pakistan for a visa renewal, the unity of her journey maintained by the fact that she is still within the confines of the Persian empire, as she celebrates the end of Ramadan in a festive village near the Afghan border.Back in Iran, she visits the crumbling grandiloquence of lost empires at Pasargad, Naksh-i-Rustam and Persepolis, as well as the trouble spots of yesterday and today in the valleys of the Assassins and Kurdistan. But her journey reaches its happiest fulfilment back in Eastern Turkey when she buys a fine grey Arab stallion called Keyif — the name aptly means high-spirited. Together they travel among snow caps, salt lakes, nomadic summer camps and lowland rice paddies, across mountain country from Erzurum to Lake Van, up the Russian border to Mount Ararat, and discover the unexpected pleasures and hazards of remote mountain life.The Sunday Telegraph has described Christina as “a natural nomad” and wrote of “her courage and insatiable wanderlust.”Christina has the gift to communicate the zest for adventure, and even the occasional night in an Iranian police cell cannot dim her sheer delight in travelling to remote and challenging places.

    . . absorbing. This finely written book gives us a whole new sense of Iran."--The Washington Post Book WorldWhile doing research in the Iranian village of Deh Koh, Erika Friedl was able to quietly observe and record the cloistered lives of women in one of the strictest of all Muslim societies. In this fascinating book, Friedl recounts these women's personal stories as they relate the strain of their daily activities, their intricate relationships with men, and their hopes, dreams, and fears. Women of Deh Koh is a rare and vivid look at what life is really like for the women of Iran."Her intimate understanding of the life and customs of the village has made her confident about conveying her view from the inside. To share this view with us, and to comment quietly and wisely on the scene, is the striking and illuminating achievement of Women of Deh Koh."--The New York Times Book Review