The Morning After

The Morning After is a gripping Persian tale of the love and marriage... The novel has been hotly debated and criticized. Advocates found it useful for the relationship between young men and women or considered it a lesson for inexperienced youth. Opponents saw it as a defense of the nobility and dignity of the upper classes of society and the humiliation of the lower.

The Morning After/ Drunkard Morning (translated from Bamdad-e Khomar)

".....

You can't imagine what it was like for a fifteen-year old girl in those days; to fall in love was a sin in itself which could cause a blood bath; never mind writing letters; never mind turning down suitors. Falling in love? Falling in love with the carpenter's shop boy at the top of the passage? Woe betide! The daughter of Basir ol-Molk! Just the thought of it made the heart stop and the blood run cold. It was like water flowing uphill, as if blood poured down instead of rain. It was taking the bull by the horns, and I took it and I wrote. At last, I put down in writing the desire which weighed so heavily on my heart; it was the answer which had come to my mind the minute I had read his note, and I wanted to read it to him aloud:

 

'Tis to open my soul to you that I yearn for

'Tis to hear word of thy heart that I yearn for

'Tis but a raw desire for this open tale

 To be kept from my rivals that I yearn for

....."