All the Parts We Exile
From a queer Muslim woman and artist, a generous, heartfelt and insightful memoir about family and finding the path to one's truest self.
The youngest of three daughters, and the only one born in Canada soon after her parents' emigration from Iran, Roza Nozari began her life hungry for a sense of belonging. From her earliest years, she shared a passion for Iranian cuisine with her mother and craved stories of their ancestral home. Eventually they visited and she fell in love with Iran's sights and smells, and with the warm embrace of their extended family. Yet Roza sensed something was amiss with her mother's happy, well-rehearsed story of their original departure.
As Roza grew older, this longing for home transformed into a desire for inner understanding and liberation. She was lit up by the feminist texts in her women's studies courses, and shared radical ideas with her mother—who in turn shared more of her past, from protesting for the Islamic revolution to her ambivalence about getting married. In All the Parts We Exile, Roza braids a tender narrative of her mother's life together with her own ongoing story of self, as she arrives at, then rejects, her queer identity, eventually finds belonging in queer spaces and within queer Iranian histories, and learns the truth about her family's move to Canada.
The youngest of three daughters, and the only one born in Canada soon after her parents' emigration from Iran, Roza Nozari began her life hungry for a sense of belonging. From her earliest years, she shared a passion for Iranian cuisine with her mother and craved stories of their ancestral home. Eventually they visited and she fell in love with Iran's sights and smells, and with the warm embrace of their extended family. Yet Roza sensed something was amiss with her mother's happy, well-rehearsed story of their original departure.
As Roza grew older, this longing for home transformed into a desire for inner understanding and liberation. She was lit up by the feminist texts in her women's studies courses, and shared radical ideas with her mother—who in turn shared more of her past, from protesting for the Islamic revolution to her ambivalence about getting married. In All the Parts We Exile, Roza braids a tender narrative of her mother's life together with her own ongoing story of self, as she arrives at, then rejects, her queer identity, eventually finds belonging in queer spaces and within queer Iranian histories, and learns the truth about her family's move to Canada.
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Community Reviews
“For years I tried to make it make sense. If I could, then maybe I could tell the story straight. Maybe some part of me wanted to reach into the past and rip the page out. Or maybe I wanted to write the story anew. Like, this isn’t a tale of trauma; it’s one of repair. Or maybe, it’s a story about how trauma makes us do wild things.”
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
In full transparency, this was always going to be a book that I would love—I’ve been a fan of Roza’s art for a while and I have a few of her pieces on my office wall. But the beauty of her writing, and the bravery to be so honest in recounting her experiences, made this an easy 5 star rating. There were sections that felt like I was seeing parts of my own story being told, as difficult as that made it at times to keep on going. Reading this book made me feel like I also might have the potential to be that brave; if not today, then someday in the future.
I *highly* recommend this book, especially if you are also a fan of queer voices in the literary world! My social worker heart was truly filled while walking alongside Roza throughout these pages.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
In full transparency, this was always going to be a book that I would love—I’ve been a fan of Roza’s art for a while and I have a few of her pieces on my office wall. But the beauty of her writing, and the bravery to be so honest in recounting her experiences, made this an easy 5 star rating. There were sections that felt like I was seeing parts of my own story being told, as difficult as that made it at times to keep on going. Reading this book made me feel like I also might have the potential to be that brave; if not today, then someday in the future.
I *highly* recommend this book, especially if you are also a fan of queer voices in the literary world! My social worker heart was truly filled while walking alongside Roza throughout these pages.
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