The Good Daughter

January 24th, 2011 in Archive by The Kitchen Sisters0 Comments

The Good Daughter: A Memoir of My Mother’s Hidden Life is Jasmin Darznik‘s personal story about discovering her mother’s hidden world. The author, who was born in Tehran and later moved to America at the age of three, began to unravel her family’s history in her early 20s after the death of her father. It started with a photograph that surfaced while helping her mother move. In it was a wedding portrait of her mother as a teenager. As described by Jasmin, it was through a series of cassette tapes given to her by her mother that she learnt of her “marriage at thirteen, her troubled history of abuse and neglect, and a daughter she was forced to abandon in order to escape that life. The final tape revealed that Jasmin’s sister, Sara – The Good Daughter – was still living in Iran.” To read reviews of her memoir click here.

About the Author Jasmin Darznik was born in Tehran, Iran and received her Ph.D. from Princeton University. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and other publications. She has received awards and distinctions from the San Francisco Foundation, Marin Arts Council, Steinbeck Fellows Program, Zoetrope: All-Story, The Iowa Review, and the Norman Mailer Colony. She is a professor of English and creative writing at Washington and Lee University and has also taught Iranian literature at the University of Virginia.