... a deeply nostalgic tale of love and loss set against the revolution of 1979 ... The characters are so vividly drawn and their setting so comprehensively realized ... Having said that, Nilou is an obvious metaphor for Iran. Before the Revolution, she can speak, dress and act as she chooses. Afterwards, her liberty—both mental and physical—is severely restricted, for which the narrator feels culpable ... My Part of Her should perhaps be read as a warning. It is a novel of realities, not ideas—and certainly not the kind of false ideas which Djavadhery shows lead to the collapse of pre-revolution Iran.
This English-language debut of exiled Iranian novelist Djavahery captures the headiness of youth, with all its promise and peril, and displays how seemingly small actions can become pivotal moments when the world is turned on its head.
Djavahery’s mesmerizing English-language debut...captures the innocence and hope embodied by young people on the verge of adulthood, the allure of the underground for burgeoning minds, and the rending apart of friends and family during the Islamic revolution in 1979. Driven by the narrator’s regretful voice, Djavahery’s excellent, gripping tale depicts misplaced, youthful ambition and the conflicts of changing social norms.
Searing ... Djavahery writes pensively ... Djavahery’s novel is an aching evocation of a paradise lost, one that is impossible to regain, even in our narrator’s searching dreams. Vivid, shattering, and utterly memorable.
