First published 2020
Thirteen-year-old Bahar speaks from beyond the grave, recounting her family's desperate escape from Tehran in the years after Iran's Islamic Revolution. Her parents pack their belongings and move to a remote village, believing they can protect their intellectual freedom and their lives from the political upheaval consuming their country. The plan fails. Revolutionary chaos reaches even their rural refuge, trapping the family in violence they cannot escape. When tragedy strikes and Bahar dies, her mother sets out on a perilous journey across the transformed landscape of Iran, searching for meaning in a world that has lost its center. Through Bahar's young but perceptive voice, the story reveals how ordinary families survived extraordinary cruelty, turning to stories and imagination when reality became unbearable. The novel captures both the richness of Persian culture and the devastating impact of political oppression on individual lives.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Iran, Tehran, Village
Period: After Islamic Revolution
Audio CD · Dreamscape Media
Content warnings: violence