Bar ustukhān-hā-yi mardagān Persian 2025

“Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead” is a philosophical mystery novel by Olga Tokarczuk, one of Poland’s most acclaimed writers and the winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature. First published in Polish in 2009, the novel was shortlisted for the 2019 International Booker Prize and attracted considerable attention from readers and critics for its unique combination of crime fiction, philosophical reflection, and environmental concerns.

The story follows Janina Duszejko, an elderly retired teacher living in a remote village in Poland’s Silesia region. She is an unconventional and solitary figure: she is interested in astrology, translates the poetry of William Blake, and is a passionate defender of animals and nature. Her strong opposition to hunting and human exploitation of animals forms a central part of her worldview.

When a local hunter dies under mysterious circumstances, Janina begins to believe that perhaps the animals who have been victims of human violence have taken revenge against those who harmed them. As similar deaths occur, her theories are dismissed by the police and the local community; nevertheless, she continues searching for the truth and trying to uncover the connections between these events.

Through a distinctive and sometimes humorous narrative voice, Tokarczuk explores themes such as justice, morality, violence, loneliness, aging, and humanity’s relationship with nature. The novel is not merely a crime story, but a profound examination of humanity’s place in the world and a questioning of the value assigned to other forms of life.

The title of the book is taken from William Blake’s “Proverbs of Hell”, creating a connection between poetry, imagination, moral protest, and environmental thought. “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead” is a story about the boundaries between humans and nature, and an attempt to reconsider the concepts of power, ownership, and the value of life defined by society.