SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE

A family story about the unbreakable connection between the living and the dead

Set in Iran in the decade following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, this moving, richly imagined novel is narrated by the ghost of Bahar, a thirteen-year-old girl, whose family is compelled to flee their home in Tehran for a new life in a small village, hoping in this way to preserve both their intellectual freedom and their lives. But they soon find themselves caught up in the post-revolutionary chaos that sweeps across their ancient land and its people. Bahar’s mother, after a tragic loss, will embark on a long, eventful journey in search of meaning.

The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree speaks of the power of imagination when confronted with cruelty, and of our human need to make sense of trauma through the ritual of storytelling itself. Through her unforgettable characters, Azar weaves a timely and timeless story that juxtaposes the beauty of an ancient, vibrant culture with the brutality of an oppressive political regime.

Shokoofeh Azar
Shokoofeh Azar moved to Australia as a political refugee in 2011. She is the author of essays, articles, and children’s books, and is the first Iranian woman to hitchhike the entire length of the Silk Road. The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree, originally written in Farsi, was shortlisted for Australia’s Stella Prize for Fiction and is her first novel to be translated into English.

• Aug 20 2020
  Humanity, freedom, and magic realism in the face of authoritarian powers
  — The Daily Star
• Aug 19 2020
  Shokoofeh Azar: After the Iranian Revolution
  — Edinburgh Book Festival
• Aug 18 2020
  “A stunning novel full of passion and romance.”
  — Lonesome Reader
• Aug 18 2020
  The Words We Choose: A Roundtable with the International Booker Prize Shortlisted Translators
  — Pen Transmissions
• Jul 31 2020
  Apala Bhowmick praises the novel’s “exorbitantly beautiful narrative style” and describes it as “a sumptuous meditation on the practice of interpretation.”
  — Asymptote
• Jul 15 2020
  A powerful family saga
  — New Statesman