The Siege of Isfahan by Jean-Christophe Rufin (translated by Willard Wood)

A doctor's rip-roaring, plot-twisting, romantic prescription to pep up the ailing French novel

The first novel by Jean-Christophe Rufin, The Abyssinian, took literary Paris by storm. Since then, he has published three more and gleaned prizes for each. This literary phenomenon is a doctor, a founder of Médecins Sans Frontières, whose humanitarian work has taken him to many disaster areas.

But for his novels of adventure and romance, Rufin prefers past centuries and unfamiliar places, relying on "the truth of the imagination" to transport the reader to the Nile and Versailles, or to the domes and minarets of 18th-century Isfahan.

The Siege of Isfahan, published a year after The Abyssinian, is a sequel. Based on a historical anecdote and set in 1699, The Abyssinian told the story of Jean-Baptiste Poncet, a young physician living in Cairo who is sent by Louis XIV to Abyssinia with a view to expanding France's dominions. Poncet reaches his destination, heals the Negus with herbal remedies and travels to Versailles, where he outwits the Sun King, before returning to Cairo. He falls requitedly in love and abducts Alix, the ravishing daughter of the rebarbative French consul.

This novel takes up the narrative 20 years later. We are now in Isfahan, the capital of Persia, in 1721. Our protagonist has been living happily with Alix, their daughter Saba and an adopted English son, George. Poncet's powers have taken him to the court of the Shah, into the harems of the Shah's vizir and his chamberlain, and into the houses of notables. Rufin brings to life Isfahan's magnificent monuments, its population of Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and Muslims, living in wary harmony.

Then one day a visitor arrives – Françoise, the wife of Juremi, Poncet's friend in Cairo. Disguised as a man, she is exposed and suspected of espionage. To save her from death, Poncet tells a colossal lie, which determines events. Juremi has got involved in war between Sweden and Russia, been taken prisoner by the Russians and sent to central Asia with 10,000 Swedes. In order to rescue him, Poncet has to escape the vigilance of the chamberlain. So he fakes his own death and, after his public funeral, departs, taking George and a Mongol servant.

There follows an intricate tale of adventure told at a rip-roaring pace, crackling with humour and bouncing with plot-twists. Poncet's odyssey takes him to the Caspian, the Caucasus and Afghanistan, against a backdrop of historical events: Russo-Turkish rivalry, the end of the Safavid dynasty in Persia, Vatican chicaneries, and clandestine love affairs. After many a narrow escape, Poncet and his companions arrive back in Isfahan, only to find that the city is being besieged by Afghan rebels. Their chief, Mahmud, overthrows the degenerate Shah Huseyn, the last of the Safavid monarchs, and Poncet is reunited with his family and his friends.

Rufin introduces a host of deftly drawn secondary characters. There are memorable setpieces – such as Poncet's encounter with Peter the Great – and wonderful descriptions of Asian landscapes. Although set in the 16th to 18th centuries, Rufin's novels belong to the 19th, with Dumas and Stendhal. His narrative sparkles with joie de vivre and light philosophical musings on tolerance, compassion and happiness: "On the rare occasion when we are free to make a decision, we have no right to choose anything except happiness." Who said the French novel was in the doldrums?