The book
In this high-spirited, kaleidoscopic story, key moments of Iranian history, politics, and culture punctuate stories of family drama and triumph.
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 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.
“A wonder and a pleasure to read.”—Rivka Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances
The author
Négar Djavadi
Négar Djavadi was born in Iran in 1969 to a family of intellectuals opposed to the regimes both of the Shah, then of Khomeini. She arrived in France at the age of eleven, having crossed the mountains of Kurdistan on horseback with her mother and sister. She is a screenwriter and lives in Paris. Disoriental is her first novel.
Press
- Jan 2 2019
“If you liked Elena Ferrante . . . this I think is the next one you should pick up.”
— The Thread - Nov 12 2018
“...lively and complex”
— Vox - Jun 8 2018
A Persian Turned Parisian Insists: I’m Not an Immigrant, I’m an Exile
— New York Times - May 31 2018
8 Books About The Pain of Being Exiled From Your Home
— Electric Literature - Apr 25 2018
Silicon Alleys: Book 'Disoriental' Springs from Struggle for Political, Sexual, Cultural Reorientation
— Metro Silicon Valley - Apr 25 2018
“Disoriental offers so much to both non-Iranian and Iranian readers.”
— World Literature Today