The Blue Flower of Forgetfulness

Cyrus Samii

I’m sure others will tell the story differently,
with different heroes and different villains. And certainly with
other beginnings… All I remember for sure is the ending.

For Firouz it began with the American College, Alborz, in Tehran.
Leaving to be educated in the West like so many of his generation,
he returns to mid–20th century Iran to propel the country—ancient,
beautiful and capricious—into modernity. Singular in his passion and
drive, Firouz gives himself over to awakening the country to the energy,
exertion and possibilities of a new era. The Blue Flower of Forgetfulness
is an account of modernization, weaving together Persian fairy tales,
epic poems and Hollywood movies, orientalist history and urban legends,
World Bank loans, feverish growth and tranquil fields of roses—and
the grip of a force that strangles dreams.

Even after it was all over, after it crumbled and fell apart, he
debated events and circumstances, the could-have-beens and might-have-beens,
wanting desperately to believe there was something more to it all
than a tragedy in two acts.

About the Author

Like so many Iranians, Cyrus Samii came to America to further his education.
A year into his studies at Princeton, the Iranian Revolution and the
ensuing war with Iraq effectively precluded any return. Samii finished his
degree in economics, took a master’s in town planning at Columbia, and
pursued a career in Santa Fe. When the eight-and-a-half year war finally
ended, he went back home. When he realized he could no longer live there,
he returned to a career in town planning, and set pen to paper. He has been
writing ever since. First, articles on architectural history, “Tehran and
Trocadero,” “Alborz School: A Lesson in Architecture,” “Columns and
Capitals in the Streets of Tehran,” and now,
The Blue Flower of Forgetfulness. A second novel is in the works.

Review

Zahra Faridany-Akhavan English