The Persians
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2025
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOLLINGER EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE 2025
‘Enormously entertaining’ THE TIMES
‘As funny as it is moving’ GUARDIAN
‘Unputdownable’ HARPER'S BAZAAR
‘Funny, sharp and insightful … a triumph’ LAUREN LAVERNE
‘A joy of a debut’ DAVID MITCHELL
‘Magnificent BERNARDINE EVARISTO
Five women. Three generations. A mountain of family history.
The Valiat family are in crisis. Elizabeth, the regal matriarch, remained in Tehran despite the revolution with only the Islamic law-breaking Niaz for company. Meanwhile, in America, Shirin, Seema and Bita are wondering if their gleaming lives in ‘the land of plenty’ are all they had hoped for.
When an annual vacation goes wildly awry and Shirin is arrested, long-held Valiat family secrets begin to surface. As their lives are turned upside down, could revealing the truth save their family or might it break them apart, once and for all?
‘Funny, gutsy and confidently written … an outstanding debut’ DIANA EVANS, 2025 Women’s Prize Judge
‘Mesmerising’ MONICA ALI, author of Love Marriage
‘Darkly funny, richly satisfying’ SARAH WINMAN, author of Still Life
‘Riotous … will have you hooked’ STYLIST
‘As exuberant as it is sharp’ iNEWS
‘A sweeping and irreverent tale’ BBC
‘Gloriously engrossing’ TASH AW, author of The South
‘Exuberant, comic, perceptive’ AMINA CAIN, author of Indelicacy
‘A very brilliant, very special book’ JESSICA STANLEY, author of Consider Yourself Kissed
‘An unforgettable read’ JOSIE FERGUSON, author of The Silence In Between
About the author
Sanam Mahloudji is an American writer born in Tehran and based in London. She is the winner of a Pushcart Prize for her fiction and was nominated for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. Her debut novel, The Persians, was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction and the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize 2025.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Mahloudji's ebullient debut, a Persian family reckons with their exile and loss of prestige in the wake of the Islamic Revolution. In December 2005, middle-aged Shirin Valiat, a charismatic events planner based in Houston, is arrested for prostitution in Aspen, Colo., during a vacation with her family. News of Shirin's arrest harms her thriving business, prompting her to move into her niece Bita's cramped Manhattan apartment and court new clients at the funeral of a prominent Persian woman with ties to her estranged mother, Elizabeth, who still lives in Tehran. Mahloudji interweaves the story of Elizabeth's life in the early 1940s, when she's an aspiring painter and falls for Ali Lufti, the son of the family's chauffeur. Eventually, Elizabeth marries a much older man, choosing her family's approval over her love for Ali Lufti, but she's deeply unhappy, especially as she abandons her art career to care for her three children, all of whom flee with their own children during the Revolution. Only Shirin's six-year-old daughter, Niaz, remains with Elizabeth. Mahloudji keeps the reader turning the pages as Elizabeth teases and finally reveals her darkest secrets about Ali Lufti along with the reason behind Niaz's remaining behind in Tehran. It's a memorable family saga.
