What We Owe is a novel of love, guilt and dreams for a better future, vibrating with both sorrow and an unquenchable joie de vivre.
'Remarkable . . . What We Owe is filled with the rage of a woman who has been through trauma and loss, who has been left haunted by violence, and who wants more from those that love her' Stylist
Tehran, 1978: Nahid and Masood, both eighteen, are young lovers and young revolutionaries. Their clandestine activities are dangerous, but with youth, passion and right on their side, they feel invincible. Then one night, Nahid allows her younger sister to come along to a huge demonstration. Violence breaks out. Everything changes.
Thirty years later, Nahid lies in a hospital bed replaying her life, raging at her carers, at her recent cancer diagnosis, at Masood, at her pregnant daughter, and at her exile.
What We Owe is a novel of love, guilt and dreams for a better future, vibrating with both sorrow and an unquenchable joie de vivre.
'I read this ferocious novel in one sitting . . . Nahid confronts her own suffering with dark humour and noisy honesty, while taking aim at a patriarchal tradition that expects her to be silent' Leni Zumas, author of Red Clocks
What We Owe refuses sentimental consolations . . . Terse, urgent prose-ably channelled by Elizabeth Clark Wessel, the translator-gives pace and heft to a novel of contagious trauma. Still, Ms Hashemzadeh Bonde lets in a closing ray of hope
