Special Monday Night Reading

An Evening with Four Female Iranian-American Authors

November 19th at 7 p.m: 

Dalia Sofer
The Septembers of Shiraz

In 1982, ten-year old Dalia Sofer and her family emigrated from Iran to the United States. Having survived the 1979 Iranian revolution together, they then endured the incarceration of Sofer’s father, falsely accused of being a Zionist spy, in Tehran’s Evin prison. In The Septembers of Shiraz, a remarkably accomplished debut novel that has been sold to publishers in France, Germany, Holland, Israel, Spain, U.K., Italy, Brazil and Turkey, Sofer recreates the resounding effects of a patriarch’s political isolation and torture on each member of his family.

‘The Septembers of Shiraz’ is a remarkable debut: the richly evocative, powerfully affecting depiction of a prosperous Jewish family in Tehran shortly after the revolution…it’s impossible to predict whether Sofer’s novel will become a classic, but it certainly stands a chance.” — Claire Messud, New York Times Book Review

Porochista Khakpour
Sons and Other Flammable Objects

With rolling storytelling cadences and wry wit that recall Zadie Smith’s White Teeth and Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters, Porochista Khakpour, a young writer who emigrated to California from Tehran at age three, has delivered an extraordinary debut that marks her as a major and outrageously gifted new voice. Sons and Other Flammable Objects is a unique and powerful first novel, at once a comedy and a tragedy, a family history and a modern coming-of-age story with a distinctly timeless resonance.

“Editor’s Choice” — New York Times Book Review

Marsha Mehran
Pomegranate Soup

Born in Tehran, Marsha Mehran escaped the upheaval of the Iranian revolution with her family. She grew up in the United States, Australia and Argentina, where her parents operated a Middle Eastern café. Her first novel, Pomegranate Soup, was published in 2005 and became an international bestseller. Its sequel Rosewater and Soda Bread, will be out May 2008. She is currently at work on her third novel.

“Recalling James Joyce's Dubliners...personal demons and questioned loyalties play out like a movie on the page, making the reader feel like an eyewitness to all the events. Highly recommended.” — Library Journal

Nahid Rachlin
Persian Girls

Nahid Rachlin, born in Iran, came to the United States to attend college and stayed. Among her publications are a memoir, PERSIAN GIRLS, fall 2006 (Penguin), four novels, JUMPING OVER FIRE (City Lights), FOREIGNER (W.W. Norton), MARRIED TO A STRANGER (E.P.Dutton), THE HEART'S DESIRE (City Lights),and a collection of short stories, VEILS(City Lights).

Her short stories and essays have appeared in more than fifty magazines, including The Virginia Quarterly Review, and he New York Times Magazine. She has written reviews for The New York Times and Newsday.

“One of the best four books of the year.” -- Christopher Merrill, Director, Iowa International Writing program

This event is free and open to the public