Satan's Stones

These stories set in rural Iranian towns are most interesting for their settings and the details of the daily existence of Iranian women. A slim introduction by M.R. Ghanoonparvar concentrates on the importance of the author and where she fits in the spectrum of Iranian writing and explains that Ravanipur's own hometown--a fishing village on the Persian Gulf--was immortalized in her early books before being swallowed by encroaching modernization. In the title story, a woman returns to a village set in the desert with Satan's stones nearby. ""No one knew in what distant time or with what enormous power Satan had thrown them into the desert."" The narrator of ""Love's Tragic Tale"" is racing to get down the story of her romantic advances and hoping not to find herself in trouble. In a collective voice, a group of poets claims ""We Only Fear the Future"" and keeps obsessive watch over a female artist. A woman on a ski vacation thinks of her son, ""Haros"" (which means ""hero"" in Armenian), and returns to a town engulfed in war. ""Another Version"" of a woman's life refers to her throughout as ""the newborn"": e.g., ""The newborn, apparently after finishing the bachelor's degree, reached the doctoral stage."" Simple translations accentuate Ravanipur's spare style. (Sept.)