Tehran is geographically split between the rich north and the penurious south. Author Hozar clearly demonstrates the faultlines which underlaid the collapse of the monarchy and the 1979 revolution. This complex plot has an equally intricate backdrop. This fact is eventually revealed and the two reach a kind of reconciliation.Īria, Nazanine Hozar (Viking, March 2020 Pantheon, August 2020) Unbeknown to Aria, the mother, Mehri, is her birth mother. They are Jewish, although they keep this secret because they live in a Muslim-dominated suburb of south Tehran. Meanwhile Behrouz and Fereshteh arrange for Aria to teach the children of the poor Shirazi family. But she cares enough to send Aria to a French school where she befriends Hamlet, an Armenian Christian boy, and Mitra, a Muslim girl whose father is a conflicted anti-royalist with communist leanings.Īs the three grow up together, somewhat sheltered by their parents’ wealth, Iranian society begins to fracture. Maysi introduces the pair to the lady of the house, the widowed and reserved Fereshteh, who in time adopts Aria.įereshteh becomes Aria’s third incompetent mother she is unable to express her love for Aria or much emotion in general. On a trip to the doctor with Zahra in the wealthy northern suburbs, they bump into Maysi, a servant to the aristocratic Ferdowsi family for whom Zahra also used to work. Eventually, the neglect is so bad that Aria develops trachoma. Named by Behrouz after the operatic term for song, although Aria is also an Iranian boy’s name, she refuses to be cowed by her stepmother’s brutality and remains defiant. Most individuals would crumble under such an onslaught, but not Aria. Whenever Behrouz is called away on duty, Zahra beats Aria, deprives her of food and locks her outside the house on its balcony. His wife, Zahra, takes against Aria for her red hair and blue-green eyes-she must be a djinn and will bring bad luck. Unfortunately for Aria, Behrouz’s home is no haven. Motherless himself, he feels compelled to rescue the squalling infant. By chance, Behrouz, a Muslim driver in the Iranian army, passes by at the critical moment. As a newborn, she is abandoned and left to die by her mother under a mulberry tree in the streets of 1950s Tehran. This debut novel by Nazanine Hozar could easily be just another slice of “misery lit” if its eponymous heroine weren’t such a firecracker.Īria’s life initially is dire indeed.

Aria by Nazanine Hozar