Acclaimed poet Nilofar Shidmehr's debut story collection is an unflinching look at the lives of women in post-revolutionary Iran and the contemporary diaspora in Canada.
The stories begin in 1978, the year before the Iranian Revolution. In a neighbourhood in Tehran, a group of affluent girls play a Cinderella game with unexpected consequences. In the mid 1980s, women help their husbands and brothers survive war and political upheaval. In the early 1990s in Vancouver, Canada, a single-mother refugee is harassed by the men she meets on a telephone dating platform. And in 2003, a Canadian woman working for an international aid organization is dispatched to her hometown of Bam to assist in the wake of a devastating earthquake.
At once powerful and profound, Divided Loyalties depicts the rich lives of Iranian women and girls in post-revolutionary Iran and the contemporary diaspora in Canada; the enduring complexity of the expectations forced upon them; and the resilience of a community experiencing the turmoil of war, revolution, and migration.
This intimate collection of short fiction by acclaimed poet Nilofar Shidmehr spans four decades to present an unflinching gaze on the lives of Iranian women in post-revolutionary Iran and the contemporary diaspora in Canada.
