The Blood of Flowers
by Anita Amirrezvani | Literature & Fiction | This book has not been rated.
ISBN: 9780316065764 Global Overview for this book
ISBN: 9780316065764 Global Overview for this book
1 journaler for this copy...
Hardcover, 377 pages
From the dust jacket:
Once there was a girl who could make glorious carpets from wool tinted with the essence of orange safflowers and pomegranates...
In Persia, in the seventeenth century, a young woman is forced to leave behind the life she knows and move to a new city. Her father's unexpected death has upended everything—her expectation of marriage, her plans for the future—and cast her and her mother upon the mercy of relatives in the fabled city of Isfahan.
Her uncle is a wealthy designer of carpets for the Shah's court, and the young woman is instantly drawn to his workshop. She takes in everything—the dyes, the yarns, the meeanings of the thousand ancient patterns—and quickly begins designing carpets herself. This is men's work, but her uncle recognizes both her passion and her talent and allows her secretly to cross that line.
But then a single disastrous, headstrong act threatens her very existence and casts her and her mother into an even more desprrate situation. She is forced into an untenable form of marriage, a marriage contract renewable monthly, for a fee, to a wealthy businessman. Caught between forces she can barely comprehend, she knows only that she must act on her own, risking everything, or face a life lived at the whim of others.
The world of medieval Persia comes alive in this luminous novel, from its dazzling architecture to its bustling markets with their baskes of spices and breathtaking turquoise-and-gold rugs. With spellbinding Persian tales and prose as radiant as the city of Isfahan, The Blood of Flowers is the remarkabe adventure of one woman choosing a life—against all odds—on the strength of her own hands, mind, and will.
Anita Amirrezvani was born in Tehran, Iran, and grew up in the United States. When she was fourteen years old her father let her choose a carpet for herself, and the old and beautiful rug she selected led her to imagine the lives of the people who might have designed and created it. Out of that experience comes her first novel.
From the dust jacket:
Once there was a girl who could make glorious carpets from wool tinted with the essence of orange safflowers and pomegranates...
In Persia, in the seventeenth century, a young woman is forced to leave behind the life she knows and move to a new city. Her father's unexpected death has upended everything—her expectation of marriage, her plans for the future—and cast her and her mother upon the mercy of relatives in the fabled city of Isfahan.
Her uncle is a wealthy designer of carpets for the Shah's court, and the young woman is instantly drawn to his workshop. She takes in everything—the dyes, the yarns, the meeanings of the thousand ancient patterns—and quickly begins designing carpets herself. This is men's work, but her uncle recognizes both her passion and her talent and allows her secretly to cross that line.
But then a single disastrous, headstrong act threatens her very existence and casts her and her mother into an even more desprrate situation. She is forced into an untenable form of marriage, a marriage contract renewable monthly, for a fee, to a wealthy businessman. Caught between forces she can barely comprehend, she knows only that she must act on her own, risking everything, or face a life lived at the whim of others.
The world of medieval Persia comes alive in this luminous novel, from its dazzling architecture to its bustling markets with their baskes of spices and breathtaking turquoise-and-gold rugs. With spellbinding Persian tales and prose as radiant as the city of Isfahan, The Blood of Flowers is the remarkabe adventure of one woman choosing a life—against all odds—on the strength of her own hands, mind, and will.
Anita Amirrezvani was born in Tehran, Iran, and grew up in the United States. When she was fourteen years old her father let her choose a carpet for herself, and the old and beautiful rug she selected led her to imagine the lives of the people who might have designed and created it. Out of that experience comes her first novel.
