Publishers Weekly
11/25/2019
This challenging debut by Iranian writer Azar, forced to flee to Australia in 2011, tells in dreams and fantasies the story of one family during and after the Islamic Revolution, which overtook the country in the last quarter of the 20th century. Thirteen-year-old Bahar narrates from beyond the grave, weaving a phantasmagorical tale that follows her father, Hushang, as he leads his family away from Tehran and their old ways, abandoning rugs and books and intellectual pursuits deemed dangerous by the new Islamic regime, to the small town of Razan, where he hopes to protect them. Propelled by fairy tales of jinn and the dead, the novel meanders from Bahar’s own death in a fire set by Islamic thugs to the disappearance, torture, and death of her brother, Sohrab, through the mental struggles of Bahar’s mother, who climbs greengage plum trees, and beautiful sister Beeta, who turns into a mermaid. Azar’s florid style emulates the rich storytelling tradition of bygone Persia, redolent with Zoroastrian lore and mired in magical vegetation “containing a thousand memories,” clearly meant as a bulwark against the oppression of the present day regime. But the promise of the voice is weighed down by clunky writing, rife with repeated and awkward phrasings. Azar’s dense family saga is animated by characters who face terror heroically, but it’s undercut by the unpolished prose. (Jan.)
From the Publisher
Praise for The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree
★ “Azar’s narrative exudes fairy tale charm driven by moments of deep connection that ultimately celebrate human and humane bonds unbroken even in death.” —Booklist
“Engaging, tantalizing, and memorable.”—ForeWord Reviews
“If ever there was a book that needs to be read more than once, this is it.” —ArtsHub
“One of those miraculous books that not only has the power to send an arrow into your heart, it also makes you think.”—Qantara
“Shokoofeh Azar has found a brilliant way to use myth to record harsh truths about political and cultural upheaval.”—BookRiot
“[Azar’s] book is a great journey. It moves places and it moves us as readers, in an emotional and intellectual sense.” —Robert Wood, The Los Angeles Review of Books
“The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree is a hugely ambitious book, blending familial drama with the history of a nation during a conflicted era.”—Words Without Borders
“Azar’s novel is sad, funny, poetic, moving and poignant all at once, a novel I would recommend without any reservations at all.”—Asian Review of Books
“A book full of hope and human resilience in the face of unspeakable cruelty and intolerance” —World Literature Today
“The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree is both a simple family story and a complex look at the nature of reality and imagination.” —The Winnipeg Free Press
“[The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree] affirms again the adaptability, the veracity, the sheer power of the novel form.” —The Brooklyn Rail
“The plot is intricate…the writing is ravishing: shimmeringly poetic…so mesmerizing is the storytelling.” —Miriam Cosic, The Weekend Australian
“Azar delves deep into the mythological spirit realm and pre-Islamic Zoroastrian religion of ancient Persia . . . [taking] us into breathtaking worlds of imagination and allegory . . . Astonishing.” —Backstory
“I have never read such a voice before. It is playful, poetic and deeply melancholy at the same time. Azar writes about the blunt force or Iranian history with the lightness of a feather’s touch. Transcendental, brilliant and beautiful.” —Alice Pung, author of Laurinda
“Combing characters loosely drawn from her own life with a mélange of supernatural elements, Azar achieves a certain magical realist style that is rich without being baroque, amply lush without being weighed down by access.”—Asymptote Journal
OCTOBER 2020 - AudioFile
Priya Ayyar becomes the voice of 13-year-old Bahar, the ghostly narrator of this story set in post-Revolutionary Iran. Ayyar uses a wistful voice that makes it easy for listeners to empathize with the horrors the teenager encounters. Ayyar is an experienced narrator of international fiction. She expertly handles this imagining of a watershed moment in Iranian history through her full command of its wide cast of characters, and grim plot. Throughout her performance, Ayyar conveys the persona of a vulnerable child, heightening our understanding of the character. The story also highlights the impact of the Islamic Revolution on Bahar's family. Fans of historical fiction and world literature will find much to admire in this title. M.R. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
