Journey from the Land of No

By Roya Hakakian,

Book cover of Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran

Book description

An emotional, evocative coming-of-age story about one deeply intelligent and perceptive girl’s attempt to find her own voice in prerevolutionary Iran
 
“An immensely moving, extraordinarily eloquent, and passionate memoir.”—Harold Bloom

Roya Hakakian was twelve years old in 1979 when the revolution swept through Tehran. The daughter of an esteemed poet,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Journey from the Land of No as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

My favorite line from this book is “When you have been a refugee, abandoned all your loves and belongings, your memories become your belongings.”

I appreciated this book when I read it the first time, and I recently re-read it. Immigrant stories are half-and-half: how it was there, and how it is here. For those of us who are second or third-generation, we rely upon those who remember or record how it was there. 

Often those stories focus on only the good things, omitting the trauma. Hakakian wonderfully balances the memories of Iran in its beauty and ugliness. This is…

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