National Book Award for Translated Literature
Disoriental
In the waiting room of a Paris fertility clinic, Kimiâ Sadr is overtaken by the history of the family that fled Iran for France. The novel layers political revolution, family myth, immigrant dislocation, and sexual identity in a polyphonic and exuberant narrative.
Work Information
From the quiet of a waiting room erupts a three-generation story of family memory and exile.
Disoriental, translated from the French Désorientale, opens from Kimiâ's confrontation with her body and family history as an Iranian French woman. Ancestors of the Sadr family, parents who resisted successive regimes, and life after exile are joined through a musical, digressive narrative. No Japanese standalone edition was confirmed.
Review Summaries
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Award coverage emphasizes the breadth with which the book tells family drama and political history at once. Its core lies in connecting personal memory to the cultural instability of people who have left a country behind.
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Publisher and reader response often notes that the voice remains energetic while handling historical weight. The cascade of ancestral stories conveys both the pain of exile and the pleasure of storytelling.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Europa Editions
- Published
- 2018-04-17
- Pages
- 320 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 13.46 x 3.3 x 20.83 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781609454517
- ISBN-10
- 1609454510
- Price
- 3961 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Gay & Lesbian/Literature & Fiction/Fiction/Gay
National Book Award Finalist: “A multigenerational epic of the Sadr family’s life in Iran and their eventual exile . . . Full of surprises” ( The Globe and Mail ). Winner of the 2019 Albertine Prize and Lambda Literary Award Kimiâ Sadr fled Iran at the age of ten in the company of her mother and sisters to join her father in France. Now twenty-five and facing the future she has built for herself, as well as the prospect of a new generation, Kimiâ is inundated by her own memories and the stories of her ancestors, which come to her in unstoppable, uncontainable waves. In the waiting room of a Parisian fertility clinic, generations of flamboyant Sadrs return to her, including her formidable great-grandfather Montazemolmolk, with his harem of fifty-two wives, and her parents, Darius and Sara, stalwart opponents of each regime that befalls them. It is Kimiâ herself―punk-rock aficionado, storyteller extraordinaire, a Scheherazade of our time, and above all a modern woman divided between family traditions and her own “disorientalization”―who forms the heart of this bestselling and beloved novel, recipient of numerous literary honors. “Where initially Disoriental seems focused on Kimiâ’s father and his pro-democracy activism―first against the Shah, then the Ayatollah Khomeini―this is truly Kimiâ’s story of disorientation―national, familial and sexual―and finding herself again.”― The Globe and Mail “A tour de force of storytelling . . . Djavadi deftly weaves together the history of 20th-century Iran [and] the spellbinding chronicle of her own ancestors. . . . Perfectly blends historical fact with contemporary themes.”― Library Journal “Riveting . . . Djavadi is an immensely gifted storyteller, and Kimiâ’s tale is especially compelling.”― Booklist (starred review) “A wonder and a pleasure to read.”―Rivka Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances WINNER 2019 ALBERTINE PRIZE WINNER 2019 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST 2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST 2019 CLMP FIRECRACKER AWARD FINALIST 2019 BEST TRANSLATED BOOK AWARD WINNER LE PRIX DU ROMAN NEWS WINNER STYLE PRIZE WINNER 2016 LIRE BEST DEBUT NOVEL WINNER LA PORTE DORÉE PRIZE ONE OF THE GLOBE & MAIL’S BEST BOOKS OF 2018
Négar Djavadi was born in Iran in 1969 to a family of intellectuals opposed to the regimes both of the Shah, then of Khomeini. She arrived in France at the age of eleven, having crossed the mountains of Kurdistan on horseback with her mother and sister. She is a screenwriter and lives in Paris. Disoriental is her first novel. Tina Kover 's published works include the Modern Library translation of Georges by Alexandre Dumas pére, The Black City by George Sand (Carroll & Graf), and Maurice G. Dantec's Cosmos Incorporated and Grand Junction . In 2009 she received a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship for the translation of Manette Salomon by the Goncourt borthers.
Reviews
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パリの不妊治療クリニックからの回想
物語は，1971年にイランで生まれた語り手の女性が，パリの不妊治療クリニックで行う回想を通して進みます．レコードを意識して， side A:語り手の曾祖母がカスピ海に面した町のハーレムで生まれてから，イラン革命，イラン・イラク戦争までの一族の記憶 side B:語り手・その家族がパリに亡命してからの出来事について といった構成になっているのが特徴． 語り手から見た激動のイランの歴史に加えて，移民として生きることや，セクシャリティーに関するエピソードが描かれていて圧倒されますが，1994年に一家に起こる"THE EVENT"やside Aで突然登場するAnnaという人物が何者なのかといったミステリー的要素が含まれているので最後まで飽きずに読むことができます． 単なる筆者の祖国の歴史の記録から現代の問題を投げかけるだけでなく，語り手やその一族の運命に胸が打たれる良作だと思い，最終章の語り手の母親の言葉には号泣してしまいました．
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Interesting once you’ve memorized the entire cast of characters
The author jumps around a lot and talks about a lot of different people so it was difficult to follow in the first 1/2 of the book.
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Punctual arrival, good condition
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This book will undoubtedly stay with me long after I finished reading it. The story was written in such a way that I felt like I was there, watching through the eyes of the main character. It also taught me a lot about Iran and helped explain the pain of being exiled from your country. One of the *paraphrased* exchanges from book replays in my head: "Do you have a weapon?" "My husband's pen." "That is not a weapon." "Then why I am here?"
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Made me relive my time living in Iran. I could Identify with the times and events described in the book
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If you can read through the slow first 60 pages the book picks pace.. intermittently it’s a fast read then kind of sways and picks pace again. The taboo topic, the condition of those in exile are all what kept me reading
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I've read this book and it is not in my top 50 I would say