Review: Daughters of Smoke and Fire

Daughters of Smoke and Fire by Ava Homa
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Leila and Chia are siblings in Kurdistan, technically in the Kurdish part of Iran, when their father is named an enemy of the state and not allowed to work. Their family struggles for money while both children also try to get an education, but the odds are not in Leila's favor (and she wants to be a filmmaker in a region that polices everything including books and films.) Then her brother disappears....

In my year of reading more in the Middle East, this novel came at a perfect time. The author is also from Kurdistan/Iran but had greater access to education through scholarship programs overseas (the novel was written in English.) Homa shows how governments (plural) intentionally keep the Kurdish people down through keeping their regions from developing, limiting access to education, and requiring children not to speak their childhood language.

I had a copy of this book from the publisher through Edelweiss; it came out May 12, 2020.

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