Persian Archives - BookDragon

A Girl Called Rumi by Ari Honarvar [in Shelf Awareness]

04 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Iranian, Iranian American, Persian, Persian American, Repost

Journalist/artist/activist Ari Honarvar's promising debut, A Girl Called Rumi, memorializes the lifesaving power of storytelling through the darkest terrors. In 1981, the Iran-Iraq War was still new and a semblance of normalcy seemed possible for 9-year-old Kimia, who claims "Rumi" as part-time moniker. She's missing...

Seven Special Somethings: A Nowruz Story by Adib Khorram, illustrated by Zainab Faidhi [in Shelf Awareness]

08 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Persian, Persian American, Repost

Persian American Adib Khorram joyfully and playfully celebrates his heritage in Seven Special Somethings, his picture book debut, following his award-winning Darius the Great YA duology. Khorram is partnered with fellow debut picture book creator Zainab Faidhi, an Iraq-born artist whose animation background provides each page...

Best World Literature 2020 [in Library Journal]

02 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Australian, Australian Asian, Caribbean, European, Fiction, French, Japanese, Korean, North Korean, Persian, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

For three years, I've been reading along with two fabulously erudite co-horts – my Library Journal editor Barbara Hoffert and fellow LJ reviewer Lawrence Olszewski – to recognize and celebrate the best translated world literature. This year, we had well over 100 titles to discuss, debate, negotiate,...

The Immortals of Tehran by Ali Araghi [in Shelf Awareness]

28 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Iranian, Iranian American, Persian, Persian American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Ali Araghi begins his prodigious debut novel with a literal bang: once upon a time in an apple orchard, a returning soldier urges his rifle into his son's hands, forcing the boy to shoot him. The shocking tragedy renders 10-year-old Ahmad mute, and has...

Then the Fish Swallowed Him by Amir Ahmadi Arian [in Shelf Awareness}

07 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Iranian, Iranian American, Persian, Persian American, Repost

Prolifically published in his native Farsi, Amir Ahmadi Arian makes his English-language debut with Then the Fish Swallowed Him, a disturbingly irresistible novel exposing the invalidity of truth and lies under a despotic regime. Growing up in a volatile, politically fractured society and losing both parents...

Five More to Go: Shokoofeh Azar’s The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree [in The Booklist Reader]

16 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Iranian, Iranian American, Persian, Repost, Translation

The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar Although the page facing the title of Azar’s first novel to be translated into English clearly states, “Translated from the Farsi,” the linguistic enabler remains anonymous; the publisher’s official line is, “the translator of this book has asked...

Booklist Backlist: Fictional Worlds, Real Meals [in Booklist]

16 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Arab, Arab American, Black/African American, Canadian, Cuban, Cuban American, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Iranian, Iranian American, Japanese, Korean, Latina/o/x, Lebanese, Lebanese American, Lists, Nonethnic-specific, Persian, Persian American, Repost, Southeast Asian American, Translation, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American

Yeah, sure: Proust and his madeleine-dipped-in-tea set the barometer for toothsome leitmotifs. I admit to the possibility that my academic indoctrination in his long, long musings made me quite the hungry reader. Or maybe I’m just always greedy for nourishment, with preferences in the belly...

The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar [in Booklist]

03 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Australian, Australian Asian, Fiction, Iranian, Persian, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Although the page facing the title of Azar’s first novel to be translated into English clearly states, “Translated from the Farsi,” the linguistic enabler remains anonymous; the publisher’s official line is, “the translator of this book has asked not to be named out of...

The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali [in Booklist]

04 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Iranian, Iranian American, Persian, Persian American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Adroitly adapting her deep, mellifluous voice across continents, decades, ages, and genders, Mozhan Marnò flawlessly embodies Marjan Kamali’s (Together Tea, 2013) stupendous sophomore title about young lovers torn apart by class, politics, and history during the violent tumult of 1950s Iran. A Tehran stationery...

The Parrot and the Merchant by Marjan Vafaeian, translated by Azita Rassi [in Shelf Awareness]

03 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Persian, Repost, Translation

An avid collector, Persian merchant Mah Jahan's most precious possessions are her birds. Despite her devotion, "she kept them in cages or chains so that they couldn't fly away and leave her." Most beloved is "a beautiful bright parrot," favored because "the parrot had learned...

Audio Picks for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month [in School Library Journal]

08 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Chinese American, Fiction, Filipina/o, Filipina/o American, Hapa/Mixed-race, Indian, Indian American, Iranian, Iranian American, Korean American, Lists, Middle Grade Readers, Persian, Persian American, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian, South Asian American, Taiwanese American, Young Adult Readers

May is Asian Pacific American (APA) Heritage Month. Why May? The first Japanese people immigrated to the United States on May 7, 1843, and the transcontinental railroad – built mostly with immigrant Chinese labor – was completed on May 10, 1869. In 1977, Congressional legislation...

Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram [in Booklist]

08 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Iranian, Iranian American, Persian, Persian American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Sixteen-year-old loner Darius Kellner is an easy target at his Portland, Oregon, high school. He’s clinically depressed, a diagnosis he shares with his “Teutonic Übermensch” father. His nurturing comes mostly from his Iranian immigrant mother, and he’s close to his 8-year-old sister. For all that,...

A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi [in Booklist]

17 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Iranian American, Persian, Persian American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Already a best-selling fantasy YA author (the Shatter Me series), Tahereh Mafi firmly roots herself in familiar reality with her latest, a can’t-turn-away timely story about teens falling in love despite intolerant peer pressure, difficult family situations, and vast cultural divides. Sixteen-year-old Shirin has switched...

Song of a Captive Bird by Jasmin Darznik [in Library Journal]

24 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Iranian, Iranian American, Persian, Persian American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW With her eloquent contralto, Mozhan Marnò exquisitely embodies the Persian poet and filmmaker Forugh Farrokhzad – her experiences as a young bride, maturation as a writer, hesitant then strident steps toward independence, and refusal to be silenced through the violent horrors of the autocratic...

The Last Days of Café Leila by Donia Bijan + Author Interview [in Bloom]

01 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Iranian, Iranian American, Persian, Persian American, Repost

Café Leila & Beautiful Ruins: Q&A with Donia Bijan “Strange things happened when I returned to Tehran in 2010 after thirty-two years in exile,” writes Donia Bijan in her recent essay, “The Women’s Hour.” Traveling with her sister, she found her childhood home – the hospital their father built...

Favorite Diverse Children’s Books of 2016 [in Utah Journal of Literacy]

07 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Bangladeshi American, Black/African American, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Caribbean American, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Indian American, Korean American, Latina/o/x, Lists, Middle Grade Readers, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Pan-Asian Pacific American, Persian, Persian American, Repost, South Asian American, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

ABSTRACT These books feature diverse characters who – in a multiplicity of ways – suffer, learn, and generally triumph in their differences. Varying in genre from picture book to poetry, in setting from Kenya to California, and in ethnic focus from Muslim Bangladeshi to Ojibway/Anishinaaabe (Canadian...

Refuge by Dina Nayeri [in Christian Science Monitor]

27 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Iranian, Iranian American, Persian, Persian American, Repost

'Refuge' is the story of an Iranian family in search of home Here’s the seemingly simple narrative frame: A father and daughter are separated and spend the next two decades both avoiding and yearning for reconnection. But Dina Nayeri’s sophomore novel, Refuge, is anything but straightforward,...

A Poet of the Invisible World by Michael Golding [in Library Journal]

05 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Jewish, Persian, Repost

To get her four-eared infant to safety, Nouri Ahmad Mohammad ibn Mahsoud al-Morad's mother gave first her body, then her life. In 13th-century Persia, a child so different would require divine intervention to survive, and Nouri literally falls into the arms of a gentle, crippled...

It Ain’t So Awful, Falafel by Firoozeh Dumas [in Shelf Awareness]

23 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Iranian American, Middle Grade Readers, Persian, Persian American, Repost

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,...

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly by Rashin

20 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Iranian, Iranian American, Persian, Persian American

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...

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