Zomorod Yousefzadeh hasn't "met anyone who has moved so many times before sixth grade." Her peripatetic upbringing has already encompassed long distances – not just in miles, but across cultural, social and political divides, as well. Originally from Abadan, Iran, her family moved to Compton,...
Girls on the Edge Adolescence without instant uploads, 140-character confessions, and constant connectivity was just so last century – survival in the 21st means a whole new set of unfamiliar, unpredictable challenges. In four recent, better-not-miss novels for young adults, four diverse women writers amplify the modern...
The text is not new: you probably recognized the kiddie tune from the title. The origin information appears on the copyright page, so you'll know immediately that "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly is a beloved children's folk song written in the...
Welcome to Ramadan at Shirin's house: she sky-gazes with her father, listens to stories told by her grandmother, helps her mother sort squares for a new quilt ...
When her father dies, a girl and her mother's futures are forever altered. As a 14-year-old living in a 17th-century Persian village, she expected to be contentedly married, looking forward to starting her own family, not unlike her best friend who is already heavy with...
According to a note at book's end, Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī of 13th-century Persia, also known as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, or simply Rumi, "...
A few months ago when I came upon this fascinating article, "The One Thing White Writers Get Away With, But Authors of Color Don't" by PolicyMic's Gracie Jin, I started trolling around for authors venturing into unexpected 'color'-ful fictional territory. I was fascinated to find two bestselling writers...
Before she is even a teenager, Saba Hafezi reveals herself to be quite the unreliable narrator. Telling stories, however, is what will save her youthful soul ...
"In the car, Mina turned on the news. 'Iran' was mentioned in the same breath as 'terrorist' and 'rogue.' Just once, Mina wanted to hear the name of her old country mentioned in the same breath as 'joy' or 'freedom' or 'gentle goodness.'" What Mina...
Let me know if you've heard this one before ...
"Based on the life of Princess Pari Khan Khanoom" seems to be the dominant short-hand description (even on its own back cover) of Anita Amirrezvani's historical novel set in 16th-century Persia, now modern Iran. Some might find that description misleading, and expect this to be...
In the genre of memoirs (which includes based-on-a-true-story, autobiographical novels), I've noticed two distinct categories: the titles you read for the importance of the story, and the memoirs that also turn out to be fabulous examples of great literature. Psychologist Rahimeh Andalibian's writing debut represents the former;...
"The authors have chosen anonymity for obvious political reasons." When you know something like that about a book – that lives were willing to be risked to get a story out – how could you possibly not read it? In the case of Zahra's Paradise, I...
Logizomechanophobia: the fear of computers. That would be me! Of course, none of the four 12-year-old protagonists in this chuckling read suffer from such fears (young 'uns these days are all so wired!), but they do each have their own quirky phobias. As every chapter...
For two years before she left Iran, Nafisi, a resigned university professor, spent almost every Thursday morning with seven of her favorite former female students, discussing Western classics in a...
An especially timely, highly entertaining look – “I-ran is a sentence, Iran is a country” – at life in Southern California as an Iranian immigrant. Dumas mixes humorous misadventures with chilling memories...
Vicious, harrowing, nightmare of a short novel about a 17-year-old girl arrested and imprisoned for her brother’s revolutionary activities during the fundamentalist takeover of Iran. Based on the lives of real women who survived such horrific,...
