TEHRAN-The Persian translation of the 2001 novel “1979” by the Swiss writer Christian Kracht has been released in the Iranian book market.

Mohammad Hemmati has translated the book and Nashr-e Now (Now Publication) has brought it out, Mehr reported.

It is set in 1979 and tells the story of an unnamed young man who gets caught up in political turmoil in Iran and China.

The protagonist is a young man who travels to Tehran with his friend Christopher. It is the time of the Iranian Revolution, and as Christopher dies, the full revolution breaks out. The protagonist is convinced to travel to Tibet to climb the sacred Mount Kailash, only to be captured by the Chinese army. 

He spends time in an internment camp where he is indoctrinated and goes along with the survival techniques the prisoners develop. Throughout the story, the man is largely unaffected by the events around him and pays more attention to art, music, food, and furnishings.

This novel also deals with alienation and a chiefly Western form of consumer existence, but it depicts the fragility of an apparently decadent Western-metropolitan value system and its powerlessness before the Eastern-totalitarian model of Maoism.

The protagonists of Kracht's fiction embark on journeys that take them in search of an elusive moment of immersive, utopian experience or spiritual enlightenment often located in a different nation or culture. Their journey usually, but not always, results in disappointment, failure or even death.

Christian Kracht, 58, is a Swiss writer and journalist. His books have been translated into more than 30 languages.

SS/SAB