Our Take

From the bestselling author of The Septembers of Shiraz comes a morally complex masterwork that refuses easy answers or comfortable judgments. Dalia Sofer crafts an unflinching portrait of complicity, examining how an idealistic revolutionary boy becomes the kind of man who inflicts unimaginable violence in service of a regime. What makes Man of My Time extraordinary is Sofer's compassion and acerbic humor in depicting someone who is simultaneously monster and victim—too intelligent to ignore the consequences of his actions yet trapped by the turbulent momentum of history. Her prose is exquisite, reminiscent of Persian poetry in its unexpected imagery and profound observations, slicing directly to the heart of each scene with devastating precision. Set against the backdrop of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and its aftermath, the novel explores how a person becomes "the system" through incremental choices and moral compromises. The tension between Sofer's elegant language and her protagonist's nihilistic unraveling creates a haunting irony that underscores the book's central question: can historical context ever excuse personal evil? For readers drawn to the morally ambiguous protagonists in Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist or the political complexity of Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, this novel offers similar depth and urgency. A New York Times Notable Book with starred reviews from Kirkus, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly, Man of My Time is a brilliant meditation on power, betrayal, and the fragility of human morality—a deeply humane inquiry into Iran's history and soul.