Novel now available

My Name is Innocence

Shiva’s debut novel has just been published in Romanian. The novel traces the history of modern Iran through the eyes of three sisters from an affluent middle-class family who, for different reasons, become radicalised during the 1979 Revolution and are swept up in its brutal and bloody aftermath. On a historical level, the novel portrays the political, social, and cultural developments that shaped contemporary Iran; on a personal level, it explores the pain, anger, and helplessness experienced in the face of destruction and tragedy.

Category: Novel
Author: Shiva Rahbaran
Language: Romanian
Publisher: HUMANITAS
Publishing Date: 2026

Shiva Rahbaran crafts a narrative of remarkable power: the story of a young woman who navigates childhood, ideology, and love in a world where innocence turns into guilt. Family, faith, and politics intertwine in a fragile universe in which every choice—or refusal to choose—can become fatal. A profound work, a novel of grave and hypnotic beauty, at once political and intimate, My Name Is Innocence reconstructs not only the fate of a young girl, but the tragedy of an entire generation and, beyond that, the universal condition of those who have been denied the right to be free. For where history closes doors, literature opens them.

– Fatma Yilmaz

My Name Is Innocence is a novel about an Iranian family torn apart by politics. Shiva Rahbaran offers a reflection on the alliance between the revolutionary left and Shiism, as well as on the way hatred cuts down lives in the name of political fictions such as usurpers of the nation, class enemies, or the export of revolution.

– Cristian Preda

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