Parisa Reza was born in Tehran in 1965 to a family of intellectuals and artists, and moved to France at the age of seventeen. She was awarded the Prix Senghor 2015 for her first novel, The Gardens of Consolation.
Iran
Parisa Reza
All Parisa Reza's books
Latest reviews
- Reza’s novel is not only a political and historical one. It is filled with love stories, humanity and universal trials and tribulations.— Bookwitty, Jun 14 2017
- Parisa Reza’s first novel, The Gardens of Consolation, opens in the year 1299 of the Iranian calendar. Talla is just twelve, but she is already married to Sardar, an illiterate teenage shepherd who has returned to the village of Ghamsar to claim his bride. Soon after they leave...— The Times Literary Supplement, Apr 21 2017
- To the east, bare earth as far as the eye can see. To the west, hills … then on the horizon, mountains. And a road, traced along the length of the desert, the length of the mountains, from Isfahan to Tehran. That is the beginning of this lovely book, as two young newly married...— Shiny New Books, Feb 28 2017
- Reading The Gardens of Consolation feels like being on a flying carpet with your grandmother and listening to her telling you, in a nonchalant dreamy tone, a bedtime story about once upon a time in a fantasy world.— World Literature Today, Feb 24 2017
- In her debut novel, Parisa Reza presents a simple, beautiful story of two Iranian peasants, Sardar and his wife, Talla, who leave their secure village—a paradise—for the wider world. As they make their way across the mountains, they suffer many hardships, including the loss...— Historical Novel Society, Feb 1 2017
- Parisa Reza’s luminous first novel, The Gardens of Consolation, ends with the Iranian Revolution of 1979 but begins centuries earlier. Or so it seems. The opening scene, certainly, evokes an ancient land. “To the east, bare earth, as far as the eye can see. To the west, hills,...— Barnes & Noble Review, Jan 17 2017
- The Gardens of Consolation heralds the arrival of yet another prodigiously talented French-Iranian author, Parisa Reza, whose outstanding debut novel, like the works of Marjane Satrapi and Fariba Hachtroudi, voices a side of Iran rarely glimpsed in Western media. Reza's novel...— Shelf-Awareness, Jan 8 2017
- Parisa Reza, The Gardens of ConsolationThis illuminating and lyrical first novel by Iranian-born Reza, translated from the French by Adriana Hunter, won France’s Prix Senghor. Reza follows a young couple as they travel from their ancestral village of Ghamsar to Shemiran on...— BBC, Nov 30 2016
- Iranian French author Reza’s first novel is a gripping account of Iranian history viewed from the perspective of the Amir family. We meet Sardar and his bride, Talla, as they set out from their small village, Ghamasar, around 1920. The story of the ebb and flow of their marriage,...— Booklist, Nov 15 2016
- Iranian author Reza's beautifully written debut novel tells of a young illiterate couple who move from the countryside to Tehran in the 1920s. They raise a son who becomes educated and subsequently involved in the political and social turmoil of the Shah's rise to power. Reza...— Publisher's Weekly, Oct 30 2016
- A Prix Senghor 2015 winner by Tehran-born Reza, who came to France as a teenager in the 1980s, this debut opens in a remote mountain village in 1920s Iran. When teenage Sardar marries barely pubescent Talla and takes her away to live on the outskirts of Tehran, she becomes the...— Library Journal, Oct 26 2016
- Iran’s early 20th-century political upheavals drive this absorbing debut novel about a working-class couple and their gifted, socially ambitious son. The novel, by Iranian author Reza, opens in the early 1920s, with young newlyweds Talla and Sardar Amir traveling from their...— Publisher's Weekly, Oct 6 2016
