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Disoriental Kindle Edition
Winner of the 2019 Albertine Prize and Lambda Literary Award
Kimiâ Sadr fled Iran at the age of ten in the company of her mother and sisters to join her father in France. Now twenty-five and facing the future she has built for herself, as well as the prospect of a new generation, Kimiâ is inundated by her own memories and the stories of her ancestors, which come to her in unstoppable, uncontainable waves. In the waiting room of a Parisian fertility clinic, generations of flamboyant Sadrs return to her, including her formidable great-grandfather Montazemolmolk, with his harem of fifty-two wives, and her parents, Darius and Sara, stalwart opponents of each regime that befalls them.
It is Kimiâ herself—punk-rock aficionado, storyteller extraordinaire, a Scheherazade of our time, and above all a modern woman divided between family traditions and her own “disorientalization”—who forms the heart of this bestselling and beloved novel, recipient of numerous literary honors.
“Where initially Disoriental seems focused on Kimiâ’s father and his pro-democracy activism—first against the Shah, then the Ayatollah Khomeini—this is truly Kimiâ’s story of disorientation—national, familial and sexual—and finding herself again.” —The Globe and Mail
“A tour de force of storytelling . . . Djavadi deftly weaves together the history of 20th-century Iran [and] the spellbinding chronicle of her own ancestors. . . . Perfectly blends historical fact with contemporary themes.” —Library Journal
“Riveting . . . Djavadi is an immensely gifted storyteller, and Kimiâ’s tale is especially compelling.” —Booklist (starred review)
“A wonder and a pleasure to read.” —Rivka Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances
WINNER 2019 ALBERTINE PRIZE
WINNER 2019 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD
FINALIST 2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
FINALIST 2019 CLMP FIRECRACKER AWARD
FINALIST 2019 BEST TRANSLATED BOOK AWARD
WINNER LE PRIX DU ROMAN NEWS
WINNER STYLE PRIZE
WINNER 2016 LIRE BEST DEBUT NOVEL
WINNER LA PORTE DORÉE PRIZE
ONE OF THE GLOBE & MAIL’S BEST BOOKS OF 2018
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherEuropa Editions
- Publication dateMay 1, 2018
- File size4118 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Praise for Disoriental
"Like the best kind of fable, it is a tale of the solace and constriction of tradition and the magic and danger of reinvention."--The Times Literary Supplement
"In her remarkable novel, 'Disoriental, ' Negar Djavadi. . . beautifully captures the 'disorientation' of exile and the attempt to reconstruct a self through family stories."--Dalia Sofer, The New York Times
"Tina Kover's translation from French is lively and complex, with Négar Djavadi's rich, elegant sentences shining through."--Vox Another award-winner is Négar Djavadi's debut, Disoriental, translated by Tina Kover. A multigenerational epic of the Sadr family's life in Iran and their eventual exile, as told by former punk Kimiâ Sadr as she sits in a Paris fertility clinic, this one is full of surprises. Where initially Disoriental seems focused on Kamiâ's father and his pro-democracy activism - first against the Shah, then the Ayatollah Khomeini - this is truly Kimiâ's story of disorientation - national, familial and sexual - and finding herself again.--The Globe and Mail
"There's certainly enough of interest and appeal here, and there are some creative touches to the presentation, right down to the use of a few footnotes . . . and the glimpse of pre- and then revolutionary Iran and Iranian culture is quite interesting."--The Complete Review
"The family currently lives in France and Disoriental's message is particularly poignant, and relevant, in today's political climate, when refugees are not freely welcome in many Western countries. . . With beautiful prose by Djavadi (and skillful translation from the original French by Tina Kover), and Kimia's biting wit, readers will be entranced by the Sadr family lore."--The Furious Gazelle
"[Djavadi] masterfully takes her reader through multiple parallel journeys in time and space."--The Los Angeles Review of Books
"In a tour de force of storytelling, screenwriter and debut novelist Djavadi deftly weaves together the history of 20th-century Iran [...] with the spellbinding chronicle of her own ancestors. [...] [T]his enchanting novel, well translated and with surprises and delights on every page, perfectly blends historical fact with contemporary themes."--Library Journal
"Authentic, ambitious, richly layered, and very readable, [...] every scene [of Disoriental] rings true."--Kirkus
"What is obvious from the beginning of this riveting novel is that Djavadi is an immensely gifted storyteller, and Kimiâ's tale is especially compelling."--Booklist (Starred Review)
"Disoriental is a rich, irreverent, kaleidoscopic novel of real originality and power. I've never read anything quite like it."--Alexander Maksik, author of You Deserve Nothing "Djavadi's momentous first novel [...] convincingly and powerfully explores the enormous weight of one's family and culture on individual identity, especially the exile's."--Publishers Weekly "Djavadi here offers an account of an Iranian family, thought revolutions, relationships, and diaspora, and she does so with a voice remarkably open to humor, warmth, and love. The prose is at once chaotic and precise, charismatic and familiar. Disoriental is a wonder and a pleasure to read."--Rivka Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances "Disoriental is epic in scope and yet deeply, even intimately, personal-the novel blows up any lines between the personal and the political, intertwining generations of inherited family stories in a way that doesn't just bring history to life (though it does that as well), it shows the lingering and often cruel effects seemingly disembodied historical forces can cast on an individual like Kimiâ Sadr. And amidst a story that could not be more topical--encompassing political upheaval and emigration, gender and sexuality--Djavadi's reluctantly worldly-wise narrator casually lays bare devastating truths about society and human nature. Stunning."--Tim Mohr, author of Burning Down the Haus
"By turns heartbreaking and humorous, Negar Djavadi takes us on a whirlwind journey through Iran's modern history, vividly capturing the pain of exile with passion and heart."--Saleem Haddad, author of Guapa
"Disoriental is a novel that will take your breath away, a lovely hymn to the freedom to live, to think, and to love." --France Inter
"Emotion, comedy, fever, and drama."--Elle
"If the history of Iran had to be contained in a book, set in motion and shaken by its revolutions, it would give you Disoriental...astonishing, disorderly, extraordinary, and enjoyable." --Le Devoir
"Constructed like a vinyl record, with its epic and novelistic A-side and its 'awkward little sister, ' the personal and political B-side, Disoriental has many enticing tracks. These include its narrative strength, held up by the consummate art of digression, changes in tone and rhythm, and the richness of its themes, as well as the precision of the critical eye that it points most notably at French society." --Le Monde des livres
"An incredible story...that leaves the reader dumbstruck, intensely and emotionally thrown off course." --ActuaLitté
"An ample political, historical, and intimate fresco, Disoriental appeals to readers with its freedom, its power, its breath, its language, and offers brilliant reflections on exile and identity. Impressive!" --Le Carnet à spirales
"Magnificent." --Le Soir
"An enchanting writer." --Canal +
Bookseller Blurbs
"PHENOMENAL! Insightful and compelling...Djavadi takes on huge social topics such as immigration, homosexuality, politics and culture and distills those issues into the personal experience of one girl, who is so genuine and endearing that one can't help but come to understand and have compassion for what she and her family endured. This story is one that needs to be read!"--Stephanie Crowe, Page & Palette Bookstore
"A master storyteller, Djavadi unravels Kimiâ Sadr's origin with family lore that has been passed down for generations, beginning with her Persian great grandfather in 1896. Each thread of the family's story builds the foundation for their harrowing escape to France during the Iranian Revolution. This book is a triumph and humanizes the history of a culture that many have ignored." --Rachel Watkins, Avid Bookshop
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : B079P59631
- Publisher : Europa Editions; Translation edition (May 1, 2018)
- Publication date : May 1, 2018
- Language : English
- File size : 4118 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 337 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #81,131 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #36 in LGBTQ+ Family Life Fiction (Books)
- #96 in Humorous Literary Fiction
- #353 in Cultural Heritage Fiction
- Customer Reviews:
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A beating heart tale bookended with profound acceptance of what being torn from one's roots has wrought.
I witnessed the events that the characters lived through American news. Now I need to learn more.
Top reviews from other countries
side A:語り手の曾祖母がカスピ海に面した町のハーレムで生まれてから,イラン革命,イラン・イラク戦争までの一族の記憶
side B:語り手・その家族がパリに亡命してからの出来事について
といった構成になっているのが特徴.
語り手から見た激動のイランの歴史に加えて,移民として生きることや,セクシャリティーに関するエピソードが描かれていて圧倒されますが,1994年に一家に起こる"THE EVENT"やside Aで突然登場するAnnaという人物が何者なのかといったミステリー的要素が含まれているので最後まで飽きずに読むことができます.
単なる筆者の祖国の歴史の記録から現代の問題を投げかけるだけでなく,語り手やその一族の運命に胸が打たれる良作だと思い,最終章の語り手の母親の言葉には号泣してしまいました.
As for the non-linear nature of the story: Kimia is in a waiting room in a Paris fertility clinic. It is only near the end of the book that we realize that it is in 2001, when she is aged 30. She is waiting for insemination with Pierre’s sperm – but it is a third of the way through the book before we learn anything at all about Pierre, and only very shortly before the end that we learn the origin of that relationship; all we do know at the beginning is that they are not married and that he is not in the waiting room with her. She also mentions a friend of hers called Anna, and again it is only very late in the book that we learn anything about her or the lesbian relationship she has with Kimia.
While she is waiting, her thoughts skitter backwards and forwards through her family history and relationships. An important figure is Uncle No 2. (He also has a name, but three of her other uncles are simply Uncle Nos. 1, 3, and 5). Uncle No 2 is the family historian, and, during the turmoil of events leading to the Iranian Revolution of 1979, he has told them the story, back in 1896, of the patriarch’s harem in northern Persia in 1896. I found this darting back and forth throughout the book very exhausting.
Kimia’s beloved father, Darius, was an anti-Shah Marxist activist, ardently supported by his wife Sara. Kimia sees people like her father, rather than the Ayatollah Khomeini, as having set in train the events that would lead to the overthrow of the Shah.
Darius had periodically gone into hiding from the Savak in 1978. At one time that year, a general had come to their house to kill him, but he was himself killed by an angry crowd when he left the house. Later that year there was a terrifying raid of soldiers into their home. Darius had been arrested and taken away, but, miraculously, again with no explanation, had been released. He never told his family what had happened to him, and closed off from his children and even, to some extent, from his wife. It was after that that he went into hiding again. Sara was rashly courageous. She was not arrested, but grenades were thrown into their house.
Again, we are told some of this long before we are told what courageous steps Darius had taken as a dissident, beginning in 1976.
Darius returned home in 1979, after the Shah had fled and the Ayatollah had arrived back in Iran. But the Ayatollah was as autocratic as the Shah had been, and Darius was again in the opposition and had to flee again, to France. His family followed him out of Iran in 1981 – although it will only be very many ages later that we get an account of the hair-raising escape of Sarah and her three daughters into Turkey (the country from which Sara’s Armenian grandparents had had to flee into Persia 67 years earlier. From there, after another heart-stopping hitch, they manage to fly to France. Kimia was then ten years old.
Kimia thinks about her time in Brussels and in London, but again, we are not told about the circumstances that took her to these cities (and others) until very late in the book.
In part this is a novel about the effect of the family moving from one culture to another, adapting to their new country, but, for all Kimia’s protestations that she didn’t really want to dwell on the past, also still retaining links with the culture of one’s origin. The family had idealized France when it was still in Iran. The actual experience of France, where they had no friends and where people were so much more reserved than Iranians were and often (especially at school) did not distinguish between Iranian refugees and Iranian religious fanatics, left them all severely disillusioned. By the time she is fourteen, Kimia mentally escapes from France and Iran into the world of punk. At sixteen, she hangs out with that lot. Her mother is horrified and frightened. Her elder sisters remain in Paris and are close to their parents, but Kimia rebels. She leads a very chaotic life. Aged 18 she is in Brussels. Aged 20 she is in Berlin. There she learns that the Islamic government in Iran hunts down its enemies abroad.
In the same way in which the author keeps us waiting about the story of Pierre, so she also makes several enigmatic reference to THE EVENT of March 13th, 1994, but does not explain until in the last tenth of the book what that event was, and very terrible it was. Presumably it was soon after THE EVENT that she returns to Paris.
Iranian history and politics are very important in this book, but so are the relationships within the family; and we have vivid pictures of the patriarch, of Kimia’s grandfather Mirza Ali, of her parents, Darius and Sara, and, occasionally of her two elder sisters, Leili and Mina. We also have vivid pictures of Persian society and customs through the 19th and 20th centuries.
The different episodes are all very well told, and often moving; but I found the chaotic and muddling structure in which they are embedded so intensely irritating that I can just about give the book a three-star review.