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What we owe

Hashemzadeh Bonde, Golnaz, 1983-2018
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A compressed, visceral novel about exile, dislocation, and the emotional minefields between mothers and daughters. Tehran, 1978: Nahid and Masood, both eighteen, are young lovers and young revolutionaries, determined to overthrow the Shah's regime and help to bring about democracy. Their clandestine activities are dangerous, but with youth, passion and right on their side, they feel invincible. Then one night, Nahid allows her younger sister to come along to a huge demonstration. Violence breaks out. Nahid lets go of her sister's hand. Everything changes. As the revolution sours, and the loss becomes too much to bear, Nahid and Masood are forced to flee to Sweden, on borrowed money with forged passports. Tehran is no longer safe for them, and now they are expecting a baby; they need to get out before they lose everything. Thirty years later, Nahid lies in a hospital bed replaying her life, raging at her carers, at her recent cancer diagnosis, at Masood, at her - now pregnant - daughter, and at her exile among people who while purporting to understand know nothing of what she has been through. Told with startling honesty, dark wit and an irresistible momentum, What We Owe is a novel of love, guilt and dreams for a better future, vibrating with both sorrow and an unquenchable joie de vivre.
Main title:
What we owe / Golnaz Hashemzadeh Bonde ; translated by Elizabeth Clark Wessel.
Imprint:
London : Fleet, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group, 2018.©2018.
Collation:
181 pages ; 24 cm
Notes:
First published in Sweden in 2017 by Wahlström & Widstrand as Det var vi.Translated from the Swedish.
ISBN:
9780708898833 (paperback)
Dewey class:
839.738
Language:
EnglishSwedish
Added title:
BRN:
338922
LocationCollectionCall numberStatus/Desc
Brighton LibraryAdult Fiction - GeneralHASHAvailable
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