three families live under the tyranny of a paranoid patriarch, My Uncle Napoleon is a rich, comic and brilliantly on-target send-up of Iranian society. The novel is, at its core, a love story. But the young narrator's delicate and pure love for his cousin Layli is constantly jeopardized by an unforgettable cast of family members and the hilarious mayhem of their intrigues and machinations. It is also a social satire, lampooning the widespread Iranian belief that foreigners (particularly, and with some historical justification, the British) are responsible for events that occur in Iran. But most of all it is a very enjoyable, often sidesplitting read that you wish did not have to end.

First published in the early 1970s, My Uncle Napoleon became an all-time bestseller in Iran. In 1976 it was turned into a television series and immediately captured the imagination of the whole nation-its story became a cultural reference point and its characters national icons.