by Nazanine Hozar
Recommended by Anosh Irani
It is the early 1950s in a restless Iran, a country powerful with oil wealth but unsettled by class and religious divides and by a larger world hungry for its resources. One night, a humble driver in the Iranian army is walking home through a neighborhood in Tehran when he hears a small, pitiful cry. Curious, he searches for the source, and to his horror comes upon a newborn baby girl abandoned by the side of the road and encircled by ravenous dogs. He snatches up the child, and forever alters his own destiny and that of the little girl, whom he names Aria.
Nazanine Hozar’s stunning debut takes us inside the Iranian revolution–but seen like never before, through the eyes of an orphan girl.
Through Aria, we meet three very different women who are fated to mother the lost child: reckless and self-absorbed Zahra, wife of the kind-hearted soldier; wealthy and compassionate Fereshteh, who welcomes Aria into her home, adopting her as an heir; and finally, the mysterious, impoverished Mehri, whose connection to Aria is both a blessing and a burden.
The novel’s heart-pounding conclusion takes us through the brutal revolution that installs the Ayatollah Khomeini as Iran’s supreme leader, even as Aria falls in love and becomes a young mother herself.
Click below to download the discussion guide.
About Anosh Irani
Anosh Irani has published four critically acclaimed novels: The Cripple and His Talismans, a national bestseller; The Song of Kahunsha, which was an international bestseller and shortlisted for Canada Reads and the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize; Dahanu Road, which was long listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize; and The Parcel, which was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.
His play Bombay Black won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, while his anthology The Bombay Plays: The Matka King & Bombay Black and his play The Men in White were both finalists for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama. His latest collection of short stories, translated from the Gibberish: Seven Stories and One Half Truth, has been published by Knopf.
About the Author
Nazanine Hozar
Nazanine Hozar was born in Tehran, Iran at the onset of the Iranian Revolution. She moved to Canada during the Iran-Iraq war. Her first novel, Aria, tells the story of the interconnected lives of a group of Iranians in the thirty years leading up to the 1979 revolution. Aria is published by Knopf Canada and is a top ten Globe and Mail bestseller.
Nazanine holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and is currently working on her second novel.
Watch a discussion with Nazanine Hozar, author of Aria, the Amnesty Book Club selection for March-April 2020.
