Europa snaps up second 'stylistically audacious' novel from Azar

Europa Editions has snapped up The Gowkaran Tree in the Middle of Our Kitchen, a layered magical realist novel from Iranian writer Shokoofeh Azar.

Michael Reynolds, editor in chief at Europa Editions US, acquired world rights from Victoria Chylek at Authors Legal. The English translator for the novel wished to stay anonymous. The Gowkaran Tree in the Middle of Our Kitchen will be published late 2024.

Azar’s new novel charts the destinies of 12 children who get lost one night in 1977 inside a mysterious palace. After this, each characters’ story unfolds over five decades against the backdrop of Iranian cultural and political transformations.

The publisher continued: "It is a book about family bonds, specifically about the indissoluble connections between the living and the dead, between grief and joy, and between reality and myth. It is also the story of one extended family’s efforts to preserve Iranian culture in the face of Islamic hegemony following the 1979 revolution."

Azar worked as a newspaper editor and journalist in Iran before having to leave the country and settle in Australia after several arrests in connection with her work. Her debut novel, The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree (Europa), was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2022.

Reynolds commented: "This is not one of your stripped-down, laid-back, undernourished works of contemporary fiction. Wildly imagined, stylistically audacious, symphonic, unbridled, politically engaged, a river in flood – words, images, sounds, smells illuminating 50 years of Iranian history through the story of one large, complicated family and a heart-rending love affair. It is mesmerising and deeply personal. The Gowkaran Tree in the Middle of Our Kitchen will reach a wide swathe of readers; it’s sure to attract even more critical and prize attention than Shokoofeh’s debut and will consolidate her reputation as one of Iran’s finest literary voices-in-exile."