Aria

An extraordinary, cinematic saga of rags-to-riches-to-revolution--a "Doctor Zhivago of Iran"*--that follows an orphan girl coming of age at a time of dramatic upheaval.

• *"Here comes a sweeping saga about the Iranian revolution as it explodes--told from the ground level and the centre of chaos. A Doctor Zhivago of Iran." --Margaret Atwood (on Twitter)
• "Aria is a feminist odyssey, about a girl in a time of intolerance as the revolution in Iran is breaking out. A poised and dramatic historical novel with contemporary relevance." --John Irving

Iran in the 1950s is wealthy in oil but riven by divisions of class, ethnicity, and religion, and its corrupt government is under foreign influence. At this volatile moment, an illiterate driver rescues a redheaded, blue-eyed baby girl who has been abandoned in a Tehran alley and names her Aria. When he can no longer care for her, he finds her a new home, setting her on an unlikely path from extreme deprivation to a life of privilege. Along the way, Aria acquires three mother figures with secrets of their own: one who abuses her, one who adopts her, and one whose role in her life is initially mysterious. At university, Aria is drawn ever further from her poverty-stricken past, until the 1979 revolution brings her various worlds violently together again. She and her friends are swept up in the excitement and danger as the shah is overthrown, but the final stage of the revolution will bring the Ayatollah Khomeini to power at the head of a brutal theocracy--just as Aria has become a mother herself.
Nazanine Hozar's stunning debut gives us an unusually intimate view of a momentous time, through the eyes of a young woman coming to terms with the mysteries of her own past and future.