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.