The lives of Damian and Anna, both from Oxford University, become enmeshed with two Iranians, Arash, a poet, and his older brother Reza, a student sympathetic to the problems of the dissident writers in Iran, and a would-be photojournalist, interested in capturing the rebellion on the streets. It is an expertly imagined tale of the fight for artistic freedom, young love and the legacies of conflict.