Persian Pictures

· Naxos of America, Inc. · Narrated by Juliet Stevenson
Audiobook
5 hr 3 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook

In 1892, Gertrude Bell visited Persia (now Iran) shortly after the appointment of her uncle, Sir Frank Lascelles, as British minister in Tehran. Three years later came Persian Pictures, Gertrude Bell’s first written work, which presents a series of vivid sketches of Persian culture and society at the time. Bell explores various cities and landscapes, and encounters local characters along the way, providing a unique perspective on Persian life and customs. While much of what is depicted in Persian Pictures has long since changed, Bell’s writing is a valuable account of the anachronisms and inconsistencies of the dying dynasty of medieval Persia. Her depiction of Muharram – the month of mourning for Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed – and Ramadan, display a mind finely attuned to the differences and similarities between Islam and Christianity, and East and West. Persian Pictures is both travelogue and meditation – an elegiac and beautifully observed account of a spellbinding land.

About the author

Juliet Stevenson, one of the UK’s leading actresses, has worked extensively for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre. She received an Olivier Award for her role in Death and the Maiden at the Royal Court, and a number of other awards for her work in the film Truly, Madly, Deeply. Other film credits include The Trial, Drowning by Numbers and Emma. For Naxos AudioBooks she has recorded Lady Windermere’s Fan, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Stories from Shakespeare, To the Lighthouse, Bliss and Other Stories, The Road Home, Middlemarch and many more.

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