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Susanne Pari

Biography

Susanne Pari

Susanne Pari is a novelist, journalist, essayist, book reviewer and author interviewer whose writing focuses on stories of displacement and belonging, of identity and assimilation, of trauma and resilience. Born in New Jersey to an Iranian father and an American mother, she grew up both in the United States and Iran until the 1979 Islamic Revolution forced her family into permanent exile. Her first novel, THE FORTUNE CATCHER, has been translated into six languages, and her nonfiction writing has appeared in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, The Boston Globe and National Public Radio. She divides her time between Northern California and New York.

Susanne Pari

Books by Susanne Pari

In the Time of Our History
by Susanne Pari - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Twelve months after her younger sister Anahita’s death, Mitra Jahani reluctantly returns to her parents’ home in suburban New Jersey to observe the Iranian custom of “The One Year.” While Ana bowed to their domineering father’s demands and married, Mitra rebelled and was banished. Caught in the middle is their mother, Shireen, torn between her fierce love for her surviving daughter and her loyalty to her husband. Yet his callousness even amid shattering loss has compelled her to rethink her own decades of submission. And when Mitra is suddenly forced to confront hard truths about her sister’s life, and the secrets each of them hid to protect others, mother and daughter reach a new understanding --- and forge an unexpected path forward.