The Persians

When a family vacation in Aspen goes wildly awry and Auntie Shirin ends up being bailed out of jail by her niece Bita, something radically shifts in the women descended from a famous Valiat ancestor. These women could not be more dissimilar: from the regal, elder matriarch, Elizabeth; to her daughters, the quietly rebellious Auntie Seema and the outrageous Auntie Shirin; to their young daughters, studious Bita and armchair revolutionary, Niaz. Scattered between Iran and the US, as they move from the courtyard compounds and underground parties of Tehran to the waxing salons of New York and the suburban mansions of LA, each woman is beginning to consider their world afresh. Might there be more to life than they had ever realised? But, will they be able to weather the storm of change together?”

Kishani Widyaratna, Fourth Estate Editorial Director: “As cuttingly funny as it is full of heart, ambitious in its telling and unbearably life-like, The Persians took the whole team at 4th Estate by storm. In her debut novel, Sanam Mahloudji delivers a wonderfully spiky anatomy of family dysfunction and a moving portrait of the end of a way of life. It is a divine pleasure from beginning to end and I can’t wait for readers to meet Elizabeth Valiat and the unforgettable women in her family.