News

Garnet Publishing has recently acquired the world rights to the novel The Knot in the Rug by the prominent Iranian journalist and novelist, Masoud Behnoud.

The Knot in the Rug (Khanoum), by Masoud Behnoud, encapsulates the massive upheavals of the first half of 20th century from a point of view that the English-speaking readership rarely glimpses. The story contains a rich and compelling record of how these historic events affected lives of a group of people from different parts of the world.   It presents an overview of the fabric of the Iranian society with an emphasis on the last century’s privileged class.

In Khanoum, Behnoud takes us on a journey through turn of the 19th century Iran and follows the lives of three women. His heroine is Khanoum, a little girl born in the courts of Persia’s Qajar dynasty. At the same time, he unfolds the world events contemporaneous with two Persian dynasties up to the present day.

The dynasty, into which Khanoum was born, the Qajars, rose up during the tribal wars of eighteenth-century Iran to capture the Peacock Thronein 1785. Their rule lasted until 1925 when Reza Khan, a Cossack officer