Home Is a Stranger

by Parnaz Foroutan

Overview

“A thought-provoking memoir about the challenges of personal and national relations.” —Foreword Reviews 

New travel nonfiction from a break-out novelist and recipient of a PEN Emerging Voice fellowship that speaks to the immigrant and female experiences of America and Iran 

Unmoored by the death of her father and disenchanted by the American Dream, Parnaz Foroutan leaves Los Angeles for Iran, nineteen years after her family fled the religious police state brought in by the Islamic Theocracy.  

From the moment Parnaz steps off the plane in Tehran, she contends with a world she only partially understands. Struggling with her own identity in a culture that feels both foreign and familiar, she tries to find a place for herself between the American girl she is and the woman she hopes to become.  

Written with the same literary grace and passion as her fiction, Home Is a Stranger is a memoir about the meaning of desire, the transcendence of boundaries, and the journey to find home. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781948705608
Publisher:	Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	03/24/2020
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Parnaz Foroutan is the author of The Girl from the Garden (Ecco 2015). She lives in Los Angeles.

Editorial Reviews

“This is a beautifully written account of her quest to find her identity as she wrestles with a culture that is foreign and familiar, ancient and modern, and religious and secular.” –Carole, Goodreads 


“It reads like literary fiction, and at times, like poetry. A living, breathing poetry that lifts you to golden heights and plunges you into murky depths. Alternating between Los Angeles and Iran, Foroutan navigates life, death, and the space in between, in this exquisite sensory and intuitive journey.” –Natasha, Goodreads  


"The author does a fantastic job of evoking a particular time in a young woman's life, when the search for meaning and identity weights every event with potential, when the future is limitless because it is unknown, when the idea of 'becoming' is just as important as 'being.'" –Chaya, Goodreads 


“Foroutan’s sumptuous prose paints a vivid portrait of a rarely explored historical and cultural setting.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review for The Girl from the Garden) 


“Foroutan’s lyrical debut offers a mosaic of stories evoking life within a wealthy Jewish home in Kermanshah, Iran, in earlier times. . . . Deftly structured.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review for The Girl from the Garden) 

From the Publisher

03/01/2020

In 1979, at the height of the Iranian revolution, seven-year-old Foroutan (The Girl from the Garden) fled Iran with her parents and resettled in Los Angeles, leaving behind several family members in Iran. Decades later, after ending an abusive relationship and enduring a period of grief following the death of her father, Foroutan journeyed back to her homeland. Her account of that time is primarily concerned with issues of identity, as she struggles to balance Iran's strict female modesty codes with the more lax, Americanized standards with which she was raised, wondering where she truly belongs. Foroutan vividly describes her travels in Iran, its people, and her quest for self-discovery, frequently juxtaposing life in Iran with similar situations in the United States, showcasing the duality of her experiences. Following the September 11 attacks, Foroutan returned to America to address a health concern and had to reconcile the changes within herself. VERDICT An impressive, richly told account of an immigrant's journey. Recommended for all memoir enthusiasts.—Rebekah Kati, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Library Journal