The Cypress Tree
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Overview
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’A memoir to inspire’ - Aminatta Forna
’I cannot recommend this book highly enough’ - Nassim Assefi, author of Aria
’Fascinating insight on a topic much discussed but rarely understood from a human perspective. Recommended reading for anyone with an interest in the Middle East’ - Image Magazine
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The story of three generations of Iranian women - Kamin, her mother and her grandmother - which portrays the history of twentieth century Iran
Kamin Mohammadi was nine years old when her family fled Iran during the 1979 Revolution. Bewildered by the seismic changes in her homeland, she turned her back on the past and spent her teenage years trying to fit in with British attitudes to family, food and freedom. She was twenty-seven before she returned to Iran, drawn inexorably back by memories of her grandmother’s house in Abadan, with its traditional inner courtyard, its noisy gatherings and its very walls steeped in history.
The Cypress Tree is Kamin’s account of her journey home, to rediscover her Iranian self and to discover for the first time the story of her family: a sprawling clan that sprang from humble roots to bloom during the affluent, Biba-clad 1960s, only to be shaken by the horrors of the Iran-Iraq War and the heartbreak of exile, and toughened by the struggle for democracy that continues today.
This moving and passionate memoir is a love letter both to Kamin’s extraordinary family and to
Iran itself, an ancient country which has survived so much modern tumult but where joy and resilience will always triumph over despair.
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’Here is a portrait of a country completely at odds with the media’s portrayals ... It was a particular joy to read this memoir ... in the author’s nostalgic depiction, one finds both a world that has passed away and one being born again’ - Taiye Selasi, author of Ghana Must Go
The story of three generations of Iranian women - Kamin, her mother and her grandmother - which portrays the history of twentieth century Iran
Kamin Mohammadi has an established profile as a journalist, broadcaster and public speaker commenting on Iranian news stories and contemporary life inside Iran
This is the first memoir of growing up British and Iranian. Lipstick Jihad and Funny in Farsi are by Iranians growing up in America
Kamin was living in Tehran while she wrote the book and the story takes us up to the post-election demonstrations and killings in 2009/10
For fans of Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi and Blind Fold Horse by Susha Guppy
A memoir to inspire
I cannot recommend this book highly enough
Fascinating insight on a topic much discussed but rarely understood from a human perspective. Recommended reading for anyone with an interest in the Middle East
Her descriptions are so incredibly lush you feel as much as read them – I could smell the cardamom in the chai, the camellias in the garden. Here is a portrait of a country completely at odds with the media’s portrayals: the sensuous, intellectual and social Iran that Mohammadi left behind. It was a particular joy to read this memoir in the wake of the recent presidential election, for in the author’s nostalgic depiction, one finds both a world that has passed away and one being born again.
- Title: The Cypress Tree
- Author: Kamin Mohammadi
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Paperbacks
- Print Publication Date: 2012
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 288
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781408834299, 9781408822333, 1408822334, 1408834294
- Resource ID: LLS:9781408834299
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T11:38:32Z
Kamin Mohammadi was born in Iran in 1969 and exiled to the UK in 1979. She is an experienced journalist, travel writer and broadcaster who has written for the British and international press including The Times, Financial Times, Harpers Bazaar, Marie Claire and the Guardian as well as co-authoring The Lonely Planet Guide to Iran. She is currently living in Italy.
@kaminmohammadi