'Haunting, atmospheric' Samira Ahmed

'I loved this immensely evocative novel' Anita Sethi

Gripping and atmospheric, Winter in Tabriz tells the story of four young people living in 1970s Iran during the months immediately prior to the revolution, and the choices they have to make as a result of the ensuing upheaval.

The lives of Damian and Anna, both from Oxford University, become enmeshed with two Iranians, Arash, a poet, and his older brother Reza, a student sympathetic to the problems of the dissident writers in Iran, and a would-be photojournalist, interested in capturing the rebellion on the streets.

The novel draws on Sheila Llewellyn's own experience of living in Tabriz, through the winter of 1978, during the last chaotic months before the revolution took hold in January 1979.

It is an expertly imagined tale of the fight for artistic freedom, young love and the legacies of conflict.