The Siege of Isfahan

By Jean-Christophe Rufin and Willard Wood

Book Overview

It is twenty years since Jean-Baptiste Poncet, through his apothecary skills and daring diplomacy, cured the ailing Negus of Abyssinia and saved that country from the political ambitions of the Sun King, Louis XIV of France. Poncet now finds himself in Isfahan, capital of Persia, practicing medicine in the court of the Shah. In order to rescue his old friend Juremi, imprisoned in the Urals, Poncet travels in disguise to Russia, where he engages in a diplomatic duel of wits with Peter the Great. The friends, reunited, are captured by nomads and sold as slaves in Afghanistan. This the beginning of Poncet's circuitous return to Isfahan, where his wife and daughter are trapped inside the walls by a besieging army of the Afghan king, Mahmud. Subtle, erudite, exciting, and beautifully crafted, this is historical fiction that belongs on the shelf beside the work of Patrick O'Brian.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393049884
• ISBN13: 9780393049886
• Release Date: March 2001
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.6" x 1.3" x 6.7"

Customer Reviews

Fine tale of adventure in Fareway Places.

A read this novel in its original French. I absolutely loved it.Written in an extremely elegant language full of humour and genuine knowledge of the subject, it is a book that I simply could not put down. As a lover of history and good literature I find that both are entertwined here in a very successfull way. The novel offers us several interesting stories based on historical facts that are generally not known;de stories...

Exotic location, intrigue, reminiscent of G.A. Henty

Rufin has given us an excellent piece of historical fiction reminiscent of the works of G.A. Henty and James Mitchner. As one who travelled overland from Mashad, Iran to Herat, Afghanistan in March 1971 and April 1972, while an American Peace Corps volunteer in Iran, (6/70-6/72), I can relate to the setting. Shah Tahmasp II was ruling as the last of the Safavid Shahs of Persia, when two Afghan 'sardars', Mahmud and Ashraf...