Acclaimed poet Nilofar Shidmehr’s debut story collection is an unflinching look at the lives of women in post-revolutionary Iran and the contemporary diaspora in Canada.
The stories begin in 1978, the year before the Iranian Revolution. In a neighbourhood in Tehran, a group of affluent girls play a Cinderella game with unexpected consequences. In the mid 1980s, women help their husbands and brothers survive war and political upheaval. In the early 1990s in Vancouver, Canada, a single-mother refugee is harassed by the men she meets on a telephone dating platform. And in 2003, a Canadian woman working for an international aid organization is dispatched to her hometown of Bam to assist in the wake of a devastating earthquake.
At once powerful and profound, Divided Loyalties depicts the rich lives of Iranian women and girls in post-revolutionary Iran and the contemporary diaspora in Canada; the enduring complexity of the expectations forced upon them; and the resilience of a community experiencing the turmoil of war, revolution, and migration.
Acclaimed poet Nilofar Shidmehr’s debut story collection is an unflinching look at the lives of women in post-revolutionary Iran and the contemporary diaspora in Canada.
The stories begin in 1978, the year before the Iranian Revolution. In a neighbourhood in Tehran, a group of affluent girls play a Cinderella game with unexpected consequences. In the mid 1980s, women help their husbands and brothers survive war and political upheaval. In the early 1990s in Vancouver, Canada, a single-mother refugee is harassed by the men she meets on a telephone dating platform. And in 2003, a Canadian woman working for an international aid organization is dispatched to her hometown of Bam to assist in the wake of a devastating earthquake.
At once powerful and profound, Divided Loyalties depicts the rich lives of Iranian women and girls in post-revolutionary Iran and the contemporary diaspora in Canada; the enduring complexity of the expectations forced upon them; and the resilience of a community experiencing the turmoil of war, revolution, and migration.
| Published By | House of Anansi Press Inc — Feb 5, 2019 |
| Specifications | 320 pages | 5.25 in x 8 in |
| Keywords | complex women; Iranian refugees; Iranian diaspora; resilience; class and culture; family separation; immigrant experience; survivors; Islamic revolution; toxic relationships; feminist voices; secrets; family dynamics; psychological nuance; exile; short fiction; diaspora literature; Samra Habib; Dionne Brand; Pablo Neruda; Lives of Girls and Women; |
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| Written By |
NILOFAR SHIDMEHR is a poet, essayist, and scholar, and the author of six books in English and Farsi, including Between Lives and Shirin and Salt Man, a BC Book Prize finalist. She writes and delivers lectures on women’s rights, migration and diaspora, and social and political issues in Iran. A specialist in literature and cinema of modern Iran, she teaches in the Continuing Studies program at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, where she lives with her husband. |
| Written By |
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NILOFAR SHIDMEHR is a poet, essayist, and scholar, and the author of six books in English and Farsi, including Between Lives and Shirin and Salt Man, a BC Book Prize finalist. She writes and delivers lectures on women’s rights, migration and diaspora, and social and political issues in Iran. A specialist in literature and cinema of modern Iran, she teaches in the Continuing Studies program at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, where she lives with her husband. |
“A deeply felt portrait of a particular place and its people . . . The stark, protean beauty of Shidmehr’s writing recalls the shape-shifting work of Denis Johnson’s collection Jesus’ Son . . . Shidmehr’s is a necessary, feminist voice that is at once defiant and humbling.” —Quill and Quire
“Showcases an impressive range.” —Vancouver Sun
“Divided Loyalties offers an in-depth view into the complex traditions, taboos, and social mores of Iranian society from the 1970s to the present day.” —Winnipeg Free Press
“Divided Loyalties should be required reading.” —Refinery29
“Shidmehr’s sentences are complex and packed with information, at once crystal clear and highly nuanced, metaphoric and ruthlessly specific, held together by powerfully resonant central images that reverberate retroactively and knit together many levels of reference and meaning … These are stories of ordinary lives, starkly rendered and held in tender suspension, often between a ‘home’ which is beloved yet toxic, and an ‘away’ that is lonely and insulting in its oppressiveness. Panoramic yet intimate, they enact a kind of investigative surgery, each one plunging beneath the surface of a situation and penetrating it to the cellular level before re-emerging only a few minutes or hours later to reveal the context surrounding what has come to pass.” —EVENT Magazine
Each story in Divided Loyalties is like a new window into Iran’s complex post-revolutionary history, its hardships as well as its beauties, its griefs as well as its unwavering will to survive. A touching, fascinating read.
” —Sahar Delijani“Iran is a complicated country with thousands of years of history. In Divided Loyalties, with a deft hand, Nilofar Shidmehr takes us through the suffering of its people over the last four decades. An important book that sheds light on how a people can survive their darkest years.” —Musharraf Ali Farooqi
“These complex and intimate stories of Iranian women are like nothing I’ve ever read before. Nilofar Shidmehr’s perspective is wise, unique, and compelling.” —Farzana Doctor
Divided Loyalties weaves rich and complex stories spanning decades of Iran’s contemporary history and provides an intimate glimpse of lives scattered across different worlds. The stories of the characters in these pages speak to the universal experience of love, loss, and longing.
” —Payam Akhavan