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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.
Anonymous
Posted October 7, 2006
This book kept me up all night. Among other things it gave me a glimpse into the inner workings of Iranian family life and the author¿s creative development. As a fan of Nahid Rachlin¿s fiction, I wanted to know more about her own life Persian Girls has given me an insight into that life and its emotional conflict. It reveals the suffering that many women, among them her sister, and the aunt who raised her as a child, endure in many Islamic cultures¿the limitations imposed on them by the legal system and their families, especially the husbands who rule over them with tyrannical power. The oppressiveness and the pain of separation the author endured when her father took her away from her aunt the only mother she knew as a child (and forced her to live with him and her biological mother and siblings) are deeply conveyed. And so is the strength the author found within herself that allowed her to break away from these restrictions and create another life in America.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted October 10, 2006
In this poignant,intensely personal and informative memoir Nahid Rachlin traces her life from her childhood under the Shah, through the Islamic Revolution of 1979, which she witnessed from America, where she was living at that point, to a bittersweet reunion with a family both shattered and healed by the tragedies that have befallen them. The way her life goes in a different direction from that of her beloved sister, as she remains in Iran and she comes to the U.S., offers great insights into the dynamics of the culture they lived in and how it affected each. It is a story of painful separations, heartbreaking losses, and hard-won freedoms. It has the same mesmerizing power as her novels, lingering in the mind after we have finished reading the book.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted November 8, 2010
Amazing insight into the lives of Persian women.
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Posted May 28, 2008
In Persian Girls, a memoir told by Nahid Rachlin, she tells her account of growing up in Iran, coming to the united states, and going back to Iran to investigate her beloved sister¿s death. Nahid Rachlin is also the Author of Jumping over fire, Foreigner, The Hearth¿s Desire, Married to a stranger and a collection of short stories Veils. Currently she teaches at Multiple colleges and as an associate fellows at Yale University. Persian Girls, one of her latest works, is about her journey through hard struggles and rocky relationships with people in her life. One of the major themes in her memoir is to always be tenacious and never give in and give up. In order to prove to her father that she has what it takes to go to school in America, Nahid tries to excel in her studies as a student so she can try to escape from the bad home life. Another situation where she proves this lesson true is when she refuses to give into pressured sex when young men take interest in her and take her out. These were also people she could also be good friends with but after getting to know her new acquaintances she is proven wrong. Another example of this theme is that Nahid told her best friend not to give into the male dominated society she lived in. She acted like she was equal to boys around her and she never gave into what people thought about her even though she knew what she was doing was dangerous. A second major theme that is told through Nahid¿s memoir is that as you grow older and become more mature, the feelings or resentment you have had with another person will surpass and you will learn to forgive and forget. Throughout her life Nahid Rachlin had dealt with many misunderstandings with people within her family. Among these people were her parents, and her younger sister Manijeh. When Nahid was born she was promised to her aunt as a gift. All her life she was raised by her aunt named Maryam and had been accustomed to calling her mother. Nahid knew that she was not truly hers but she still loved Maryam. Unfortunately one day while she was at school her father comes, and growing up in a male dominate society, nobody questioned why she was taken away. Ever since then she was forced to live with her nuclear family and never go back to Maryam. Also, and ever since then she was never the same upbeat, playful or happy again. In her new home, she felt like it was not her home. In her new home she felt like she was living with strangers. All in all, after reading Nahid Rachlin¿s riveting tale, I can truly say that I have learned a lot. I definitely recommend this book because it¿s a good different cultural experience and shows many good themes in life that teach people perseverance. Persian Girls is a strong heartfelt story that is told by a strong voice. It is also a book that will open your eyes to the outside world and make you cherish what you already have if you have not experienced what Nahid had experienced. This story will also allow you to be grateful for living in a country where men and women are given equal rights, opportunities, and freedoms.
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Overview
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, ...