Persian Brides - Softcover

Set at the turn of the century in the fictional Persian village of Omerijan, Persian Brides tells the magical story of two young girls - Flora and Nazie Ratoryan - and their many neighbors in the almond tree alley in Omerijan where they live. Fifteen-years-old, pregnant, and recently abandoned by her cloth-merchant husband, Flora longs desperately for the return of her unborn baby's father. Nazie consoles and pities her, and though she is still only a child of eleven, she yearns - just as desperately - for her own future marriage. Although the narrative spans only two days, it branches out and back, encompassing the lives and histories of many of Omerijan's inhabitants. A blend of fantasy and reality, the narrative forcefully conveys shocking cruelties endured by many of the characters while at the same time weaving a modern-day Arabic legend where snakes offer jewels in exchange for milk and death is thwarted by appeasing the village demons.

DORIT RABINYAN was born in 1972 in Kfar Saba, Israel, to a Jewish family that had emigrated from Iran. Persian Brides is her first novel, which she wrote at the age of twenty-one, using her family stories. She has also written a book of poems and a second novel, Our Weddings (Bloomsbury, 2001).