Disoriental

Description

WINNER 2019 Albertine Prize 2019 Lambda Literary Award Prix du Style Prix de la Porte Doree 2016 Lire Best Debut Novel Le Prix du Roman News Now in B-format Paperback Kimia Sadr fled Iran at the age of ten in the company of her mother and sisters to join her father in France. Now twenty-five, with a new life and the prospect of a child, Kimia is inundated by her own memories and the stories of her ancestors, which reach her in unstoppable, uncontainable waves. In the waiting room of a Parisian fertility clinic, generations of flamboyant Sadrs return to her, including her formidable great-grandfather Montazemolmolk, with his harem of fifty-two wives, and her parents, Darius and Sara, stalwart opponents of each regime that befalls them. In this high-spirited, kaleidoscopic story, key moments of Iranian history, politics, and culture punctuate stories of family drama and triumph. Yet it is Kimia herself-punk-rock aficionado, storyteller extraordinaire, a Scheherazade of our time, and above all a modern woman divided between family traditions and her own "disorientalization"-who forms the heart of this bestselling and beloved novel. "In her remarkable novel, Negar Djavadi beautifully captures the "disorientation" of exile and the attempt to reconstruct a self through family stories." - The New York Times "The novel pulsates with life but does not shirk from violence. The gorgeous prose...takes the edge off the relentless turmoil described throughout." - The Financial Times "A momentous saga of modern Iran." - Publishers Weekly

Negar Djavadi was born in Iran in 1969 to a family of intellectuals opposed to the regimes both of the Shah, then of Khomeini. She arrived in France at the age of eleven, having crossed the mountains of Kurdistan on horseback with her mother and sister. She is a screenwriter and lives in Paris. Disoriental is her first novel. Tina Kover is a literary translator whose works include The Black City by Georges Sand, as well as works by Anna Gavalda and Mallock, both published by Europa Editions.