Persian Girls

For many years, heartache prevented Nahid Rachlin from turning her sharp novelist's eye inward: to tell the story of how her own life diverged from that of her closest confidante and beloved sister, Pari. Growing up in Iran, both refused to accept traditional Muslim mores, and dreamed of careers in literature and on the stage. Their lives changed abruptly when Pari was coerced by their father into marrying a wealthy and cruel suitor. Nahid narrowly avoided a similar fate, and instead negotiated with him to pursue her studies in America. When Nahid received the unsettling and mysterious news that Pari had died after falling down a flight of stairs, she traveled back to Iran--now under the Islamic regime--to find out what happened to her truest friend, confront her past, and evaluate what the future holds for the heartbroken in a tale of crushing sorrow, sisterhood, and ultimately, hope.

For many years, heartache prevented Nahid Rachlin from turning her sharp novelist's eye inward: to tell the story of how her own life diverged from that of her closest confidante and beloved sister, Pari. Growing up in Iran, both refused to accept traditional Muslim mores, and dreamed of careers in literature and on the stage. Their lives changed abruptly when Pari was coerced by their father into marrying a wealthy and cruel suitor. Nahid narrowly avoided a similar fate, and instead negotiated with him to pursue her studies in America. When Nahid received the unsettling and mysterious news that Pari had died after falling down a flight of stairs, she traveled back to Iran--now under the Islamic regime--to find out what happened to her truest friend, confront her past, and evaluate what the future holds for the heartbroken in a tale of crushing sorrow, sisterhood, and ultimately, hope.

Under its placid surface in 1978, Iran was a simmering sea of religious animosity and social resentment, which was shortly to boil over into the world's first Islamic revolution: the overthrow of the country's autocratic ruler, the Shah; and his replacement with a charismatic religious leader, Ayatollah Khomeni. My Persian Girl is an account of the impact the violent turmoil of the 1979 Iranian revolution has on three people: Shahnaz, a young Iranian woman; her husband Raman, who is an ambitious officer in Iran's secret police; and a naive young Englishman, James Harding. All these characters must make difficult decisions as Iran gradually slides towards the revolution, which threatens their personal safety. My Persian Girl is more than a love story set within a political thriller - it is a story of courage and hope in the face of momentous events, which have global resonance today.

Melissa Bashardoust’s acclaimed debut novel Girls Made of Snow and Glass is “Snow White as it’s never been told before...a feminist fantasy fairy tale not to be missed” (BookPage)! “Utterly superb.” —ALA Booklist, starred review “Dark, fantastical, hauntingly evocative.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review “An empowering and progressive original retelling.” —SLJ, starred review Sixteen-year-old Mina is motherless, her magician father is vicious, and her silent heart has never beat with love for anyone—has never beat at all, in fact, but she’d always thought that fact normal. She never guessed that her father cut out her heart and replaced it with one of glass. When she moves to Whitespring Castle and sees its king for the first time, Mina forms a plan: win the king’s heart with her beauty, become queen, and finally know love. The only catch is that she’ll have to become a stepmother. Fifteen-year-old Lynet looks just like her late mother, and one day she discovers why: a magician created her out of snow in the dead queen’s image, at her father’s order. But despite being the dead queen made flesh, Lynet would rather be like her fierce and regal stepmother, Mina. She gets her wish when her father makes Lynet queen of the southern territories, displacing Mina. Now Mina is starting to look at Lynet with something like hatred, and Lynet must decide what to do—and who to be—to win back the only mother she’s ever known...or else defeat her once and for all. Entwining the stories of both Lynet and Mina in the past and present, Girls Made of Snow and Glass traces the relationship of two young women doomed to be rivals from the start. Only one can win all, while the other must lose everything—unless both can find a way to reshape themselves and their story.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Finalist for the PEN/USA Award in Creative Nonfiction, the Thurber Prize for American Humor, and the Audie Award in Biography/Memoir This Random House Reader’s Circle edition includes a reading group guide and a conversation between Firoozeh Dumas and Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner! “Remarkable . . . told with wry humor shorn of sentimentality . . . In the end, what sticks with the reader is an exuberant immigrant embrace of America.”—San Francisco Chronicle In 1972, when she was seven, Firoozeh Dumas and her family moved from Iran to Southern California, arriving with no firsthand knowledge of this country beyond her father’s glowing memories of his graduate school years here. More family soon followed, and the clan has been here ever since. Funny in Farsi chronicles the American journey of Dumas’s wonderfully engaging family: her engineer father, a sweetly quixotic dreamer who first sought riches on Bowling for Dollars and in Las Vegas, and later lost his job during the Iranian revolution; her elegant mother, who never fully mastered English (nor cared to); her uncle, who combated the effects of American fast food with an army of miraculous American weight-loss gadgets; and Firoozeh herself, who as a girl changed her name to Julie, and who encountered a second wave of culture shock when she met and married a Frenchman, becoming part of a one-couple melting pot. In a series of deftly drawn scenes, we watch the family grapple with American English (hot dogs and hush puppies?—a complete mystery), American traditions (Thanksgiving turkey?—an even greater mystery, since it tastes like nothing), and American culture (Firoozeh’s parents laugh uproariously at Bob Hope on television, although they don’t get the jokes even when she translates them into Farsi). Above all, this is an unforgettable story of identity, discovery, and the power of family love. It is a book that will leave us all laughing—without an accent. Praise for Funny in Farsi “Heartfelt and hilarious—in any language.”—Glamour “A joyful success.”—Newsday “What’s charming beyond the humor of this memoir is that it remains affectionate even in the weakest, most tenuous moments for the culture. It’s the brilliance of true sophistication at work.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review “Often hilarious, always interesting . . . Like the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, this book describes with humor the intersection and overlapping of two cultures.”—The Providence Journal “A humorous and introspective chronicle of a life filled with love—of family, country, and heritage.”—Jimmy Carter “Delightfully refreshing.”—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel “[Funny in Farsi] brings us closer to discovering what it means to be an American.”—San Jose Mercury News

This book presents a portrait of Paris in the fifties and also gives an astute depiction of the confrontation between the East and the West. It also presents an account of the pain of exile.

They were children. Put on a train in a strange land, they waved goodbye to a parent as they headed to an educational institution that, unbeknownst to them, was to become their new home. Separated from their loving families, they strived to meet the expectations of the grownups and, in some cases, to rebel against them. Now, independent women, compassionate mothers, and astute professionals, they look back on their youth in the 1960’s and 1970’s to make sense of why they were sent away, and to give meaning to the sources that have sustained them over the years. Ex-boarders themselves, Latham and Ferdows provide vivid and emotionally embodied narratives of everyday lives of The Boarding School Girls. This unique collection of stories explores key issues of identity and lifespan development to seek understanding of the influence of national, religious and family culture on development within two conflicting sets of cultural values. Combining unique qualitative data with illuminating tales of resilience and accomplishment in what is likely to simultaneously inform and inspire readers with feelings of joy and sadness, love and hate, abandonment and hope, but mainly trust and forgiveness. The stories of eleven ‘little rich’ Persian girls are a nostalgic reminder of their past cross-cultural ordeals, a pragmatic perspective on psychological implications of boarding school education in England, and a celebration of the possibilities of the future. The Boarding School Girls is valuable reading for students in cultural, developmental and educational psychology and the humanities, as well as clinical psychologists and educators looking at the impact of boarding school on adolescent development.

An extraordinary memoir from an Iranian journalist in exile about leaving her country, challenging tradition and sparking an online movement against compulsory hijab. A photo on Masih's Facebook page: a woman standing proudly, face bare, hair blowing in the wind. Her crime: removing her veil, or hijab, which is compulsory for women in Iran. This is the self-portrait that sparked 'My Stealthy Freedom,' a social media campaign that went viral. But Masih is so much more than the arresting face that sparked a campaign inspiring women to find their voices. She's also a world-class journalist whose personal story, told in her unforgettably bold and spirited voice, is emotional and inspiring. She grew up in a traditional village where her mother, a tailor and respected figure in the community, was the exception to the rule in a culture where women reside in their husbands' shadows. As a teenager, Masih was arrested for political activism and was surprised to discover she was pregnant while in police custody. When she was released, she married quickly and followed her young husband to Tehran where she was later served divorce papers to the shame and embarrassment of her religiously conservative family. Masih spent nine years struggling to regain custody of her beloved only son and was forced into exile, leaving her homeland and her heritage. Following Donald Trump's notorious immigration ban, Masih found herself separated from her child, who lives abroad, once again. A testament to a spirit that remains unbroken, and an enlightening, intimate invitation into a world we don't know nearly enough about, The Wind in My Hair is the extraordinary memoir of a woman who overcame enormous adversity to fight for what she believes in, and to encourage others to do the same.