Persian Brides

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 lined 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 although she is 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.



Lush, lyrical and disturbing...(the) marvelously digressive style and rich prose give the story the feel of a night-long wedding feast.
New York Times

The energy of the writing is remarkable: Rabinyan maintains the feverish atmosphere of the novel until the very end...In Persian Brides the dream and waking worlds have merged. It is as if we have entered the wildest of Chagall’s paintings.
Literary Review

A book that smells of watermelon, meatballs, spittle and blood. The novel evokes Gabriel Garcia Marquez as it blends the lives of people, places, strange rituals, dreams, legends, the past and the present, fantasy and reality.
L’Hebdo