Septembers of Shiraz

About the book

The film is based on the novel September in Shiraz.

• Genre: novel / historical drama
• Author: Dalia Sofer
• Goodreads page: September in Shiraz — https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34487.September_in_Shiraz

About the author

Dalia Sofer is an Iranian-born novelist. In this book she fictionalizes the climate of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and its aftermath, focusing on how quickly security and social standing can collapse for an Iranian Jewish family.

What the novel is about

The story centers on a wealthy Jewish jeweler and his family in late-1970s Iran. After the revolution, he is arrested and accused of espionage/being aligned with the old order. The novel emphasizes imprisonment, fear, pressure on the family outside, and the escalating need to escape.

How closely the adaptation follows the book

Overall, the adaptation follows the novel’s core narrative beats: the jeweler’s arrest during the revolution, prison sequences, the family’s unraveling sense of safety, and the drive to flee. As is common with adaptations, some of the book’s interiority—inner thoughts, psychological shading, and finer-grained family dynamics—tends to be compressed or reweighted for a more straightforward screen narrative. In that sense, it is plot-faithful but less detailed than the novel in internal perspective.