Shokoofeh Azar
Autor von The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree
Werke von Shokoofeh Azar
Getagged
Wissenswertes
- Gebräuchlichste Namensform
- Azar, Shokoofeh
- Geburtstag
- 1972
- Geschlecht
- female
- Nationalität
- Iran
- Land (für Karte)
- Iran
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Rezensionen
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Statistikseite
- Werke
- 1
- Mitglieder
- 244
- Beliebtheit
- #93,239
- Bewertung
- 3.5
- Rezensionen
- 12
- ISBNs
- 20
- Sprachen
- 3
“It's life's failure and its deficiencies that make someone a daydreamer. I don't understand why prophets and philosophers didn't see the significance in that. I think imagination is at the heart of reality, or at least, is the immediate definition and interpretation of reality.”
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree is the first book translated from Farsi to be shortlisted for the International Booker award. It is written by Iranian author Shokoofeh Azah who fled to Australia as a refugee when her book was banned in her home country. The story is about a family from Razan whose lives are turned upside down after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The son Sohrab is taken prisoner and killed in the 1988 mass execution of thousands of Iranians due to their political affiliations. The mother Reza takes her grief to the top of the greengage tree and then wanders far from home in search of peace. The youngest daughter Bahar is burnt during a home invasion by militants and then becomes a ghost while her sister is transformed into a mermaid. There are strong elements of magical realism which draw on traditional Persian and Zoroastrian mythology and tales.
There are many perspicacious comments about the political situation: “The people were left wondering how they’d ended up in a game whose rules they hadn’t written. The game of victim and aggressor. A game in which it didn’t take long for the victims to become the aggressors.”
I found this book beautiful and insightful but difficult to follow. I have read books with elements of magical realism but this novel lent heavily on this style which possibly as a Western reader is hard to adapt to. I would be interested to see what she writes next. 3.5 stars for me.… (mehr)