The book
From International Booker Prize finalist Shokoofeh Azar, a stylistically audacious and emotionally powerful novel about one large, complicated family and a passionate love affair
Spanning fifty years in the history of modern Iran, this lush, layered story embraces politics and family, revolution and reconstruction, loss and love, as it recounts the colourful destinies of twelve children who get lost one long-ago night inside a mysterious palace.
In Azar’s new novel, each lost child’s story unfolds against the backdrop of immense cultural and political transformation; lovers must survive war, revolution, and rigid social strictures to keep their love alive; family bonds are tested, especially those indissoluble connections between the living and the dead. The Gowkaran Tree in the Middle of Our Kitchen is also the moving story of one family’s efforts to preserve the richness of Iranian culture in the face of Islamic hegemony following the 1979 revolution.
The author
Shokoofeh Azar
Shokoofeh Azar moved to Australia as a political refugee in 2011. She is the author of essays, articles, and children’s books, and is the first Iranian woman to hitchhike the entire length of the Silk Road. The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree, originally written in Farsi, was shortlisted for Australia’s Stella Prize for Fiction and is her first novel to be translated into English.