Books Set in Asia and Europe: Iran and England

The Saffron Kitchen, by Yasmin Crowther (2006)

 

Maryam Mazer was born and raised in a small village in Iran in a wealthy family.  Her father was a general in the Shah’s army.  She grew up in a somewhat traditional family where women were expected to marry a man selected by the father.  When she is 16, her father found a man for her to marry, but Maryam had other ideas.  She dreamt of being a nurse and helping people.

 

Her closest childhood friend was Ali, her father’s servant.  He grew up in a very tiny village and taught himself to read.  In Maryam’s family, he became her father’s confident and secretary, however, he was treated as a servant.

 

When the Iranian Revolution, Maryam found herself in the middle of a family tragedy and was sent to Tehran, and ultimately to London.  Maryam had ventured from her home during rioting in her village.  Ali saw her and brought her to his apartment until it was safe for her to return the next day.  Her father assumed that she had slept with Ali, and thus shamed the family’s name.  He disowned her; but allowed her to go to Tehran to pursue her nursing dreams.  She left, knowing that Ali had been beaten within an inch of his life by here father’s men.

 

In London, she met Edward, who became her devoted husband, and they had a daughter, Sara.  She had what seemed to be a perfect life.  She would occasionally return to Iran to visit family.  When her last living sister died, however, her 12-year-old nephew, Saeed, was sent to London to live with Maryam and Edward.

 

Saeed had difficulty settling life in London.  His presence in Maryam’s household opened the floodgates to her memories of Iran, which she had suppressed for years.  She believed that the only way to face her demons would be to return to Iran and to the tiny village where she had spent many pleasant summers as a child.  Ali was still living there, waiting for her return.

 

The book goes back and forth between Maryam and her grown daughter, Sara.  Sara’s life was only in England, but she knows of her Iranian roots.  The novel slowly peels back the layers of Maryam’s life so that we understand what brought her to London and back to Iran.

 

Read: January 14, 2021

 

4.5 Stars