Read Women discussion

This is our discussion thread for our November read of Daughters of Smoke and Fire by writer, journalist and activist, Ava Homa. It is inspired, in part, by the Kurdish journalist Farzad Kamangar.

Here's a link to Homa's website, which also provides background on the novel. https://www.avahoma.com/
Her book blurb is:

Set in Iran, this extraordinary debut novel takes listeners into the everyday lives of the Kurds. Leila dreams of making films to bring the suppressed stories of her people onto the global stage, but obstacles keep piling up. Leila's younger brother Chia, influenced by their father's past torture, imprisonment, and his deep-seated desire for justice, begins to engage with social and political affairs. But his activism grows increasingly risky and one day he disappears in Tehran. Seeking answers about her brother's whereabouts, Leila fears the worst and begins a campaign to save him. But when she publishes Chia's writings online, she finds herself in grave danger as well.

An interview of the author published by Chicago Review of Books: https://chireviewofbooks.com/2020/05/...

I'm looking forward to discussing this read and deepening my knowledge of the Kurds.

Who is in?

Me! Probably mid-month. Way overextended myself this month.

GailW wrote: "Me! Probably mid-month. Way overextended myself this month."

Heard. I've got a stack of 5 to get to by the 10th or so and am wondering what my plan is : )

Meanwhile, here's a wiki on the Kurds in Iran, for a foundation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurds_i...

I'm in! I thought the first chapter was beautifully written, it really pulled me in. The imagery with the flower picking and caterpillars was very poignant for me although it took on a darker meaning towards the end of the chapter. Chapter 2 seems quite different so far

Hannah wrote: "I'm in! I thought the first chapter was beautifully written, it really pulled me in. The imagery with the flower picking and caterpillars was very poignant for me although it took on a darker meani..."

Oh, that's cool to hear a first impression. It tempts me more.

I want to join but we shall see what I manage this month. My reading has slowed just recently due to demanding circumstances and I'm dropping planned books left and right these days unfortunately...

Jen - I hope you can join us BUT don't take on too much, take care of yourself first x

Hannah wrote: "Jen - I hope you can join us BUT don't take on too much, take care of yourself first x"

💯🫶

Hannah wrote: "I'm in! I thought the first chapter was beautifully written, it really pulled me in. The imagery with the flower picking and caterpillars was very poignant for me although it took on a darker meani..."

I'm in Chapter 6. What are you thinking now?

I'm ready for her to get a little older. The first several chapters struck me as a bit basic and I wanted more storytelling and more authentic characters. There was a moment where we learned about not being required to learn and speak Farsi in school where the activist aspect of our author drifted into speechifying and I want to believe more in the story and characters as people and less as props to support points. But I'm all in. It's an easy read in many ways and the narrator of the audiobook is fine.

Jen wrote: "Hannah wrote: "I'm in! I thought the first chapter was beautifully written, it really pulled me in. The imagery with the flower picking and caterpillars was very poignant for me although it took on..."

Tell me about it. I hope things are settling down for you. I got some unanticipated and not ideal work news last week and it's a big distraction, impacting sleep, too. Something's in the water everywhere...

Carol wrote: "I'm in Chapter 6. What are you thinking now."
Chapter 8 and struggling tbh. I loved the first chapter because it had warmth and joy sprinkled in with the darkness. Then from chapter 2 onwards has been so very depressing. I think it's important to learn of the horrors of human history but there has to be some relief in there too, some kind of hope or something.

Carol wrote: " I want to believe more in the story and characters as people and less as props to support points. "

I think this might be it. Her parents feel one dimensional and there's no progress or development. We just keep learning about one horror after another whilst Leila remains stuck. I suppose that this is the point the author is trying to make about Kurdish women having no options

Hannah wrote: "Carol wrote: "I'm in Chapter 6. What are you thinking now."
Chapter 8 and struggling tbh. I loved the first chapter because it had warmth and joy sprinkled in with the darkness. Then from chapter 2..."

I'm near the end of Chapter 9. Same. I'm intending to push on through, but have that feeling I"ve experienced before when an activist determines to write a book. They can be super hit-or-miss, but the strong ratings on this one either mean it will get better once Homa isn't trying to create the voice of an 16 - 20 year old woman, or the ratings are a reflection of passion for the topic. I'll hope for the first and a plot of hopefulness to emerge.

I also want to learn more about Kurdistan and the Kurds than I'm getting. It's not the author's job to give us context, necessarily, but here I think having some sense of what is worse for a Kurdish family than any other family living in Iran in the same timeframe, or whether it was rebellion that was being squashed vs. existence, or how things were under the Shah (better? worse? same?), would give me a starter-pack of the knowledge I'm missing and seeking.

I found this Wiki article on Kurdistan to give me more of the broader history than the Kurds in Iran article link I'd posted in an early link. The suffering of the Kurds is yet another byproduct of the redrawing of boundaries in the Middle East following the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the post WWII agreements. If this article is accurate, the experience of the Kurds in Iraq is very different from the experience of the Kurds in Iran. But there remains be debate about even the most basic facts - religious affiliation, which I suspect is the most important determiner of opportunity and repression.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan

I'm in Chapter 27, and it's been focused for some time on Chia's experience in Evin, or - more accurately - how difficult it is for families of persons arrested and imprisoned as protestors. I was surprised that our MC spends so much energy firm in her belief that the authorities must release Chia because there's no evidence of his guilt. Since when has evidence or guilt been the determining factor at Evin? And if you the authorities are biased against your community, wouldn't you also believe that imprisonment is simply something they do and control - because they can - regardless of actual unlawful conduct?

https://iranwire.com/en/speaking-of-i...

A GR friend began reading this book, Kurdish Women's Stories, edited by Houzan Mahmoud, a collection of stories from varied authors, and it similarly has an incredibly high rating. My takeaway is that there are many many readers excited to see Kurdish women authors having a platform to tell their stories. Our novel also is noteworthy as the first such book written in English, allowing it to be in the hands of Western readers so much more rapidly than if it had to wait for translation. One of the others things I noted with respect to the reviews of KWS is that, giving equal voices to women living in the 4 major areas of the former Kurdistan (East (Iranian occupied), West (Syrian occupied), North (Turkish occupied) and South (Iraqi occupied)) is huge to the displaced Kurd community, but it's also critical for us as readers to pay attention to which voices we're reading and to not assume that the experience of women Kurds living in areas other than Iran are necessarily the same as the experience we're learning about in Daughters of Smoke and Ashes.

Thanks for sharing this Carol. I really wanted to like this read a lot more than I did. I allowed my library ebook loan to expire without renewing which says a lot. Perhaps the author felt pressure to really drive their message home, so to speak, being the first female author published in English. I wonder if this created a barrier to just being able to write a good, readable story. I think there is some real potential here and it's an important message to be read but I need to put my mental health first right now and not push myself in reading things that just feel as though they are dragging me further down :( I have been dnf books a lot more than usual recently and avoiding certain triggers (such as with our other group read, Stolen) which isn't like me

Hannah wrote: "Thanks for sharing this Carol. I really wanted to like this read a lot more than I did. I allowed my library ebook loan to expire without renewing which says a lot. Perhaps the author felt pressure..."

You made the right choice (of course), Hannah. I finished it today and, strictly judging it as a novel, it never improved. It was indeed an ongoing depiction of much pain and misery. Layla didn't develop or grow as a character. Nor did any of the other characters. It took us event-by-event through the rest of her life, including details about her experience waiting for a visa, interviewing with the Canadian embassy, arriving on the plane... in other words, no detail was spared, and there was no story arc. It was literally a chronological biography of a character I found unpleasant, negative and judgmental at every turn, and this when depicted by an author in her best light. I wanted to tell the boyfriend, RUN!!; your life with this woman will be miserable. : )

I think that Homa should have told her story as a memoir or other nonfiction vehicle. As fiction, this book simply wasn't polished enough and needed a lot more editing, but even then I think going the autobiographical or essay route would have resulted in a better read. But I'm in the minority based on the many glowing reviews, and I can accept that.

I was able to get a copy and read this selection through to the end. I don't know if my mood affected my opinion but I found the writing to be trying too hard and excessively flowery at times. Then at other times it was brutally graphic.
I agree with you Carol, the characters did not develop. I also did not like the ending much.

Sophie wrote: "I was able to get a copy and read this selection through to the end. I don't know if my mood affected my opinion but I found the writing to be trying too hard and excessively flowery at times. Then..."

the ending seemed both flat and sudden, given everything that came before. didn’t it?

so .. not wanting to lose sight of the big picture, i am glad I paused in my reading life to focus on and learn about the Kurds, the country of Kurdistan that lost out when the West redrew the borders of multiple countries following the fall of the Ottoman empire, becoming aware of the unlikelihood of reading novels by Kurdish women in translation + appreciating the near-miracle of this book by a Kurdish woman author being written in English, and the impetus it gave me to learn more and pay more attention to the plight if Kurdish women particularly in Iran. it reminds me of the disappointing reading experience I had a couple of years back with, Daddy Was a Number Runner by Louise Meriwether. I found it disturbing and weak as a novel in equal amounts, but it tells a story no one else had told before it about the experience of young girls in Depression-era NYC and Im glad in retrospect that I pushed through it.