Rooftops of Tehran has been published in multiple languages.  For a sample of additional covers from around the world click here.

In a middle-class neighborhood in Iran’s sprawling capital city, 17-year-old Pasha Shahed spends the summer of 1973 on his rooftop with his best friend Ahmed, dreaming about their future, asking burning questions about life, while also wrestling with a crushing secret.  He has fallen in love with his beautiful neighbor Zari, who has been betrothed since birth to another man.  And despite Pasha’s guilt-ridden feelings for her, over the long, hot days their tentative friendship deepens into a richer emotional bond. 

But the bliss of one perfect, stolen summer is abruptly shattered in a single night, when Pasha unwittingly acts as a beacon for the Shah’s secret police. The violent consequences awaken Pasha and his friends to the reality of life lived under the rule of a powerful despot, and leads Zari to make a shocking choice from which Pasha may never recover. 

In poignant, breathtaking prose, Mahbod Seraji’s stunning debut novel lays bare the beauty and brutality infused into the centuries-old Persian culture, while reaffirming the human experiences we all share: laughter, tears, love, helplessness, and above all, hope.