NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize
Shortlisted for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award

“Aria is a feminist odyssey, about a girl in a time of intolerance as the revolution in Iran is breaking out . . . a poised and dramatic historical novel with contemporary relevance.”
—John Irving

“Here comes a sweeping saga about the Iranian revolution as it explodes—told from the ground level and the centre of chaos. A Doctor Zhivago of Iran.”
—Margaret Atwood (on Twitter)

"A beautiful book set against the pains and passions of the Iranian Revolution. It is so compellingly realised, and its characters and events so intimately portrayed, that one feels, while reading it, Iranian, which is to say it is a book about a particular time and place yet also, and perhaps more importantly, about the common hopes and intimate longings of lives so forcibly invaded by national events."
—Hisham Matar, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Return and My Friends

“The summer’s must-read book. . . . [W]hile it is a historical novel set around the Islamic Revolution, it is also very much about personal relationships—their power to destroy, and their potential to be destroyed by political events.”
—Marsha Lederman, The Globe and Mail

“[An] epic journey. . . . Hozar . . . captures the sweep of Iran’s political history.”
—Chatelaine

“To Hozar’s considerable credit, the characters feel complex and naturally developed; they have the vitality of living people. . . . Aria is, at its heart, a story not about a place, or about historical events, but about the human need to belong.”
—Robert Wiersema, Toronto Star

“Hozar has a cinematic style to her writing that keeps it very visual.”
—Vancouver Sun

“A sweeping tale of perseverance and the strength of the human, especially female, spirit.”
—The Source

"An impressive fiction debut . . . vibrant, unsettling. . . . An engrossing tale that reveals a nation's fraught history."
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Hozar’s ample, many-faceted, vivid, and operatic debut novel encompasses sexual violence and injustice, the vast economic and educational disparities between north and south Tehran, and the coalescence and consequences of the Iranian Revolution. Lacing cultural, political, and religious conflicts into the dramatic and tumultuous lives of her entangled characters, Hozar reveals the complexities of Iran’s glories and tragedies.”
—Booklist

"Hozar’s towering bildungsroman debut, already an international bestseller, spans three decades, capturing the maturation of the novel’s protagonist, Aria, amid the Iranian Revolution. . . . Hozar expertly weaves people in and out of Aria’s life and crafts a living, breathing environment for her heroine to inhabit, and brings things to a charged climax. This will be hard for readers to shake.”
—Publishers Weekly

"The beauty of multiplicity is central to Nazanine Hozar’s debut novel, Aria, which tracks the events leading up to, and human impulses behind, the Iranian Revolution. . . . An alluring and enlightening read.”
—The Irish Times

“A hugely enjoyable book crammed with artful devices. . . . Its skillful blending of personal and political drama, along with its broad scope, richness of setting, and vitality of character, gives it something of the quality of [Doctor Zhivago].”
—The Guardian

"Epic. . . . A pleasingly restless narrative of shifting viewpoints. . . . An impressive debut, not easily forgotten.”
—Hephzibah Anderson, The Observer

“A page-turner. . . . Through accessible language, [Hozar] vividly captures the feel of alleyways, courtyards, markets, and overlapping class experiences and faiths. . . . Hozar spent a decade researching and writing Aria, and it shows.”
—NOW

“Striking. . . . An odyssey through circumstances and classes.”
—Toronto Star