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A review by almaanvar
Together Tea by Marjan Kamali
4.0
On the outside, the book seems like the story of a mother who is eager to find the perfect match for her daughter which is quite common in the East. But in the underlying layers, you experience the war Saddam waged on Iran- where loved ones were lost to death from the constant bombing, the subsequent takeover of Iran by the Islamic Republic- where people lost their freedom, especially the women of Iran. You get a glimpse of what living under such conditions was like.
Many families fled to countries like America while they still could. In Together Tea, we follow this timeline of a family's struggle to stay together while they flee from Iran to America. Only the very fortunate ones could even afford to move out of Iran at that time and you needed concrete reasons to do so as well. Then there is that feeling that follows, of not belonging to either of the countries. That you would be an outsider in both. This quote from the book sums up that feeling :
“She knew how to swing her legs on that hyphen that defined and denied who she was: Iranian-American. Neither the first word nor the second really belonged to her. Her place was on the hyphen and on the hyphen she would stay, carrying memories of the one place from which she had come and the other place in which she must succeed. The hyphen was hers-- a space small, and potentially precarious. On the hyphen she would sit, and on the hyphen she would stand, and soon, like a seasoned acrobat, she would balance there perfectly, never falling, never choosing either side over the other, content with walking that thin line."
This book is a historical fiction and it's about the joy of togetherness and the pain of being apart experienced by people who survive calamities as such. If you enjoyed Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi then you would most likely enjoy this book.
Many families fled to countries like America while they still could. In Together Tea, we follow this timeline of a family's struggle to stay together while they flee from Iran to America. Only the very fortunate ones could even afford to move out of Iran at that time and you needed concrete reasons to do so as well. Then there is that feeling that follows, of not belonging to either of the countries. That you would be an outsider in both. This quote from the book sums up that feeling :
“She knew how to swing her legs on that hyphen that defined and denied who she was: Iranian-American. Neither the first word nor the second really belonged to her. Her place was on the hyphen and on the hyphen she would stay, carrying memories of the one place from which she had come and the other place in which she must succeed. The hyphen was hers-- a space small, and potentially precarious. On the hyphen she would sit, and on the hyphen she would stand, and soon, like a seasoned acrobat, she would balance there perfectly, never falling, never choosing either side over the other, content with walking that thin line."
This book is a historical fiction and it's about the joy of togetherness and the pain of being apart experienced by people who survive calamities as such. If you enjoyed Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi then you would most likely enjoy this book.