The powerful, moving story of a California teenager from an immigrant family who, finding himself in an increasingly hostile world, is turned from a carefree surfer's life towards a culture of fear and fanaticism

A bold and beautiful work of fiction ... Khadivi's language is sensuous and rich ... At a time when western readers' perceptions of Iran are too often shaped by current affairs, this book and its sequels will shine a necessary light on the country's dawn, and on its people's remarkable history Financial Times on The Age of Orphans The Age of Orphans has something in common with Chinua Achebe's masterpiece, Things Fall Apart ... The style is poetic, intense and lyrical, even when describing events of great brutality Independent on Sunday Remarkable for its beautiful and brutal poetry ... Khadivi's writing is bleakly expressive and always sensitive to the alterity and particularity, the poetry and the politics of an individual life Independent Poetic, heartfelt The Times on The Age of Orphans A bleak, bittersweet paean to Laleh Khadivi's birthplace, Iran. In a work which is as beautiful as it is violent, she tells the larger story of the nation's reinvention through the life of a single Kurdish boy ... Impressive and courageous Times Literary Supplement on The Age of Orphans Assured and endlessly creative Metro on The Age of Orphans Khadivi is capable of lyricism and poetry ... A brave and haunting book about displacement and identity Independent on The Walking Lyrical and illuminating Independent on The Walking The precision of Khadivi's sentences, each with a gentle rhythm and a sure-footed intelligence, engenders deep sympathy for the miseries experienced by forced migrants New York Times on The Walking

Laleh Khadivi is the author of the Kurdish Trilogy. Her first novel, The Age of Orphans, received the Whiting Award for Fiction, the Barnes and Nobles Discover New Writers Award and an Emory Fiction Fellowship, and was followed by the acclaimed The Walking. She has also worked as a director, producer and cinematographer of documentary films, and her debut, 900 Women, premiered at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival. Khadivi lives in northern California and teaches at the University of San Francisco. @Laleh Khadivi