StarAstrologer - Books : Persian Girls: A Memoir
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781585425204
ISBN: 1585425206
Label: Tarcher
Manufacturer: Tarcher
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 304
Publication Date: October 05, 2006
Publisher: Tarcher
Sales Rank: 179844
Studio: Tarcher
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Praised by V. S. Naipaul, Anne Tyler, and other writers, Nahid Rachlin has spent her career writing novels about hidden Iran-the combustible political passions underlying everyday life and the family dramas of ordinary Iranians. With her long-awaited memoir, Persian Girls, she turns her sharp novelist's eye on her own remarkable life.
When Rachlin was an infant, her mother gave her to Maryam, Rachlin's barren and widowed aunt. For the next nine years, the little girl lived a blissful Iranian childhood. Then one day, Rachlin's father kidnapped his daughter from her schoolyard, and from the only mother she'd ever known, and returned her to her birth family-strangers to the young girl.
In a story of ambition, oppression, hope, heartache, and sisterhood, Persian Girls traces Rachlin's coming of age in Iran under the late Shah-and her domineering father-her tangled family life, and her relationship with her older sister, and unexpected soul mate, Pari. Both girls refused to accept traditional roles prescribed for them under Muslim cultural laws. They devoured forbidden books. They had secret romances.
But then things quickly changed. Pari was forced by her parents to marry a wealthy suitor, a cruel man who kept her a prisoner in her own home. After narrowly avoiding an unhappy match herself with a man her parents chose for her, Nahid came to America, where she found literary success. Back in Iran, however, Pari's dreams fell to pieces.
When news came to Nahid that her sister had died, she traveled back to the country where she had grown up, now under the Islamic regime the West has been keeping a wary eye on for the last few years, to say good-bye to her only friend. It is there she confronts her past, and the women of her family. A story of promises kept and promises broken, of dreams and secrets, and, most important, of sisters, Persian Girls is a gripping saga that will change the way anyone looks at Iran and the women who populate it.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
A well written book that captures the reader by the details of an ordinary life for two different classes of Iranians before the Islamic gov. With much honesty, the writer shares many details of being a young girl and experiencing life in two different societies, the religious and the modern.With the existing differences among these two societies however they share and value the same traditions of the role of a woman, her powerlessness in her family as well as in the society. The woman's role is ... Read More
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For me, the most interesting thing about Rachlin's very interesting memoir was the incredible strength she showed in forging a life for herself that was so different from the culture she was born into in Iran and for which she had very little or no family support. It is a very personal tale of courage. Rachlin was given to an aunt to raise shortly after her birth and then wrenchingly, for both Rachlin and her aunt, taken away from her when she was about 8. I suspect it was this horrible experience ... Read More
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Very interesting to learn about the Iranian culture from an author who is unafraid. I felt her writing portrayed her pain as well as her strength. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
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Particularly in the current political climate, I was hoping that this book would provide a fascinating look into a culture that is, at best, underrepresented in mainstream English language books and, at worst, criticized, discriminated against, and even hated; the fact that the author is a woman made it all the more enticing as I simply can't read enough of how my fellow women live, survive, and thrive in other cultures.
PERSIAN GIRLS delivers on all accounts and has made me want to learn ... Read More
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The front cover of Persian Girls: A Memoir by Nahib Rachlin has a quote from a Boston Globe reviewer saying that the "memoir reads like a novel", which I felt was very accurate. Nahib has provided us with a peek into her world, spanning over fifty years, and immersing us in the culture of Iran and her family.
Nahib pulls us quickly into her world, showing us her split childhood - life with her adopted mother for her first 9 years, and then life with her birth family. Nahib's birth mother, Mohtaram, ... Read More
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