Disoriental | 
pickThis is a multi-generational story set against Kimia‘s experience trying to get pregnant. It is told in memories and time jumps which remind me of Garcia Marquez without the magical realism. The character list in the back is helpful. All of the novel leads up to “The EVENT,†a mysterious plot point left untold until the end. Overall, this is a novel which grapples with complexities of family/how we become who we are. I highly recommend it.
pickA little disorienting at first, but overall an enjoyable read about the narrator's family life in #iran and #france. I loved the way the stories flowed and intertwined, weaving towards what the narrator dubs as THE EVENT.
Realised that I could use this for #acomingoutstory for #booked2022
@Cinfhen @BarbaraTheBibliophage @4thhouseontheleft
pick4 🌟 I loved how the author played with the time line to share this story of a family that left Iran after the revolution. The narrator, the gay youngest daughter, tells the story of her family in all it's complications and love. I learned a lot about Iran. Don't know why I put off reading this great novel for so long.
pickA unique story of historical fiction. I can see how this book isn‘t for everyone - the author does weave between the past and the present, between personal and historical stories - but this book is an example of this style done well. There are others out there that are masturbatory messes (looking at you Good Omens…), but there is excellent writing in here. I really enjoyed this one.
bailedI had such high expectations for this novel after seeing some raving reviews. And I love the cover. And it started out really good too. I loved the first few pages, but then the story started jumping around and I stopped caring. I‘m not sure if it‘s because I don‘t know enough about Iranian history, that it was the wrong time for me to read this or the writing or all three.
But at least for now it‘s a DNF.
pickKimia Sadr tells us the story of her family. Jumping back and forth between past and present, she tries to make sense of her life. Escaping from Iran on foot, she and her mother and sisters reunite with her father, a vocal opponent of the Shah and the Ayatollah, in France. Kimia struggles with family, family history, her own identity, and THE EVENT. A disorienting, wonderful read. âï¸âï¸âï¸âï¸âï¸
pickI bought the book because of the cover. It‘s an amazing story taking place in Paris and Iran. Highly recommend!!!
pickKimia Sadr has a wonderful sense of humor. She threads the story of modern Iran into this portrait of her exceptional family. She strives to find her place in the family and her adopted culture-France. Favorites of 2020! #djavadi #iran #bicultural #immigration #comingofage #historicalfiction
#WordsOfOctober Day 18: This is our weekend #treat: pistachio baklava, cream baklava, kunafa cup, and basbousa with hazelnut. Mediterranean dessert feast!
#BoundTogetherJune Day 29: This Turkish dessert kunafa (or kunefe) with pistachio ice cream is downright #heavenly - and demolished within minutes. Paired with a novel by an author originally from Iran but based in Paris.
pickSuch a beautiful story about an Iranian girl growing up during tumultuous times - coming of age, coming out, and coming to terms with her family‘s and her country‘s past.
August is Women in Translation Month! I‘m going to attempt to post about a different book each day. ?
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While sitting in the waiting room of a Parisian fertility clinic, an unstoppable flood of memories of generations of a young French-Iranian woman‘s family come to her. It‘s by French-Iranian author Négar Djavadi and is translated by Tina Kover. It came out in 2018 from Europa Editions. Everyone should read it. #womenintranslationmonth???
pickSuch an emotional and heavy read, truly heart wrenching at times, but beautifully written. The way the author wove the present and past together was really well done, though I admit I did have a little trouble following at times and keeping everyone clear in my mind. I loved how much we learn about Iran, its modern history and the people, and how honest it felt whether her views were positive or negative. Love the queer rep, too, mais oui. 4/5 âï¸
I think of my body as my only country, my only homeland, and I will draw its contours the way I want them.
I‘m always chasing after the present. But the present doesn‘t exist. It‘s only an intermission, a temporary respite, which might at any moment be swept away, destroyed, pulverized, by the escaped djinns of the past.
Because to really integrate into a culture, I can tell you that you have to disintegrate first, at least partially, from your own. You have to separate, detach, dissociate. No one who demands that immigrants make “an effort at integration†would dare look them in the face and ask them to start by making the necessary “effort at disintegration.†They‘re asking people to stand atop a mountain without climbing up it first.
“Yes, of course—in a few months,†I‘d said, in a voice so phony that every time I think about it I want to run far away and die.
[The perma-mood of crippling anxiety.]
Europa editions have some of the most beautiful covers ever. The simplicity, the colors, the French flaps...love it. Haven‘t seen many people talk about this one, but what I have seen has been pretty universally positive!
Congratulations to Europa editions. I own this so must move it up the stack!
Disoriental by Négar Djavadi and translated by Tina Kover (Europa Editions) won the Bisexual fiction award at the Lammys last night. ??? #LGBTQ #translation
It was very challenging to leave this one behind at the bookstore, today. I put it on hold.
Annie & I discuss Disoriental in our latest episode of Books On The Go 🎧. Twentieth-century Iran is the setting for this family saga. A lyrical book which has won numerous awards. Have you read it? Let us know what you think! 📚🇮🇷 #womenintranslation
When Anna said the word “house,†I felt a yearning so violent that I could have sat down and cried. That‘s the tragedy of exile. Thing, as well as people, still exist, but you have to think of them as dead.
It shocks Westerners that sex changes are legal in the Islamic Republic of Iran. In our culture, the important thing is to be SOMETHING; to fall into one category or another & follow its rules. Transexuality exists because there is something worse than being transsexual, & that‘s being homosexual.
November covers. I have to interrupt my work on a blog post about this month‘s favourite books because I‘m going out for supper and then to a book launch at my local independent bookstore. 😊
pickKaleidoscopic storytelling swirls through the entire 20th century history of Iran, as well as four generations of a Persian family, all as context for the punk rock lesbian main character, living in exile in Paris where she has to lie in order to receive treatment at a fertility clinic. I was totally engrossed in this delightful #translation by Tina Kover. #LGBTQ
A passage in this novel—MC watches TV coverage of Khomeini returning to Iran in January 1979 after exile in Paris—hit me with my own memory of the only time I was in Iran. In October 1978, on a plane from Paris to Dhaka (enroute to Sri Lanka), we landed in Teheran at night for refueling. We were not allowed to disembark, but I was 18, so I scooted down the stairs, touched the tarmac & zipped back inside. The sight of fighter jets sobered me.
On the Sadr family tree, a majestic thing with a broad trunk & graceful branches hand-drawn in the style of a Persian miniature (Uncle Number 2 used to have a beautiful one of those in his house), only the male heirs are shown.
Me to Bibi one day: “Why don‘t they put girls on the family tree? We exist, don‘t we?â€
Bibi: “You think you exist, little one, but you don‘t.â€
Uncle # 6‘s first name, Pirouz, meant Victorious. When she learned—with horror, I imagine—that she was pregnant again, Mother had immediately began heaving an enormous sack of rice around the courtyard, hoping to provoke a miscarriage. But the baby, who was a strategist even then, clung to his mother‘s womb. In just a few months he grew so large that she was forced to abandon the bag of rice & take to her bed. He was born […] victoriously …
To really integrate into a culture, I can tell you that you have to disintegrate first, at least partially, from your own. You have to separate, detach, disassociate. No one who demands that immigrants make “an effort at integration†would dare look them in the face & ask them to start by making the necessary “effort at disintegration.†They‘re asking people to stand atop the mountain without climbing up it first.
pickA rich novel telling the story of Kimia‘s family in Iran. It reads like a memoir with many digressions and circling around & back to key events. Gives a real sense of being in Iran & the writing & translation are lyrical. But I found it a slow read, weighed down with confusing facts & without dramatic tension. She has a sense of irony but the tone is flat. A beautiful, valuable book, just not a style that I enjoy.
“He went to America?!â€
“That‘s what I just said.â€
“What does he do over there?â€
“What do you think he does? He‘s a Sadr. He shakes his little pipe and makes babies.â€
(Internet photo stand-in especially in honour of @LauraBeth ‘s Bitsy)
I have become—as I‘m sure everyone does who has left his or her country—someone else. Someone who has translated myself into other cultural codes. Firstly in order to survive & then to go beyond survival & forge a future for myself. And since it is a generally acknowledged idea that something is lost in translation, it should come as no surprise that we unlearn—at least partially—what we used to be, to make room for what we have become.
Iranians don‘t like solitude or silence (any noise other than the human voice, even the blaring horns of a traffic jam, is considered silence). If Robinson Crusoe had been Iranian, he would have let himself die the minute he got to the island, and the story would have been over.
What perfect serendipity to read these concurrently. Both are by queer authors, writing about experiences of exile and how global politics have shaped individual lives. Both are 5-star reads. As you may notice from all the flags on Disoriental, I have much more to say about it!
I devoted myself to studying the way he handled the shaving brush and razor, trying to memorize his technique so I could duplicate it when I was a grown-up. Basically, before other developments occurred, I knew I was a girl—but I was sure that, when I grew up, I would become not a woman, but a man.
(Author photo from Internet)
Made a visit to see my friends at Print: A Bookstore today. SPOILER: I bought books. I didn‘t plan for the colors to match so well, it just happened!📚â¤ï¸ðŸ¤˜ðŸ»
“Survival is a very personal matterâ€
I read this book a month ago but this line keeps coming back to me.
This concept for survival as a starting point sheds a whole new light on old problems.
Think about it in terms of poverty or feelings towards outsiders. If survival is personal one can‘t trust others to act in a civilized manner when they are in distress, so those not in distress can justify cruel actions.
#femaleauthor #europaeditions
pickSo unexpected.
So completely relevant.
#immigrantstories #queer #refugee #resist #family #weareallimmigrants #france #iran #history
Last read of the #pride month. Excited for this new release. #queerlit #queer #aroundtheworld #immigrant #weareallimmigrants
This also followed me home today. Union Avenue Books in Knoxville has some great recommendations. Has anyone read this beauty by Europa?
