No Horseman Emerged from the Dust, The Memoirs of Hassan Yousefi Eshkevari (b. 1949), recounts his remembrances from early childhood up to the Iranian revolution of 1979. The book comes in two main sections under Cultural Reminiscences and Political Memoirs. The first section, which comprises the greater part of the book, depicts the author’s birthplace (the tiny village of Jowrdeh in Upper Eshkevar near Roodsar City in Iran’s northern Guillan Province), his family, childhood days spent in the village, school days, studying at the seminary of Roodsar, and then moving to Qom in 1965. The same section narrates the author’s setting foot in the realms of books and papers, of poetry and fiction, of his first acquaintance with some clerical and secular writers and speakers from the mid-60’s to mid-70’s, while reviewing his own penmanship of the time including some of his published work. The second section covers the author’s encounters with the era’s political thought and those activists and revolutionaries each of whom left a more lasting impression of sorts on the author’s mindframe. His twin arrests by the secret service of the Shah’s regime (SAVAK) in Guillan and Qom with some declassified documents of the SAVAK relevant to both incarcerations complete the section’s vivid picture of the author’s political coming-of-age during the years leading to the revolution that ended three thousand years of dynastic rule in Iran. Mr Eshkevari’s political life, which had bloomed with his enrolment in Roodsar’s small seminary and later continued in Qom, Tehran, Guillan and several other towns across the country, matured by the time he was put behind bars by the embattled royal regime. The second section comes to its close with the author’s firsthand reporting of what happened to Iran in the Shah’s last year on the Peacock Throne including consequential coverage of upheavals during the final months of the regime in several towns such as Ramsar, Roodsar, Shahsavar (renamed as Tonekabon postrevolution) and Bandar Pahlavi (now Bandar Anzali). The book ends with an appendix including Mr. Eshkevari’s personal diary during 1972-3, a set of photos of his life and times then and several declassified documents of the SAVAK.weiterlesen