BOOKS FROM IRANFunny in Farsi
Description:
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Finalist for the PEN/USA Award in Creative Nonfiction, the Thurber Prize for American Humor, and the Audie Award in Biography/Memoir This Random House Reader’s Circle edition includes a reading group guide and a conversation between Firoozeh Dumas and Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner! “Remarkable . . . told with wry humor shorn of sentimentality . . . In the end, what sticks with the reader is an exuberant immigrant embrace of America.”—San Francisco Chronicle In 1972, when she was seven, Firoozeh Dumas and her family moved from Iran to Southern California, arriving with no firsthand knowledge of this country beyond her father’s glowing memories of his graduate school years here. More family soon followed, and the clan has been here ever since. Funny in Farsi chronicles the American journey of Dumas’s wonderfully engaging family: her engineer father, a sweetly quixotic dreamer who first sought riches on Bowling for Dollars and in Las Vegas, and later lost his job during the Iranian revolution; her elegant mother, who never fully mastered English (nor cared to); her uncle, who combated the effects of American fast food with an army of miraculous American weight-loss gadgets; and Firoozeh herself, who as a girl changed her name to Julie, and who encountered a second wave of culture shock when she met and married a Frenchman, becoming part of a one-couple melting pot. In a series of deftly drawn scenes, we watch the family grapple with American English (hot dogs and hush puppies?—a complete mystery), American traditions (Thanksgiving turkey?—an even greater mystery, since it tastes like nothing), and American culture (Firoozeh’s parents laugh uproariously at Bob Hope on television, although they don’t get the jokes even when she translates them into Farsi). Above all, this is an unforgettable story of identity, discovery, and the power of family love. It is a book that will leave us all laughing—without an accent. Praise for Funny in Farsi “Heartfelt and hilarious—in any language.”—Glamour “A joyful success.”—Newsday “What’s charming beyond the humor of this memoir is that it remains affectionate even in the weakest, most tenuous moments for the culture. It’s the brilliance of true sophistication at work.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review “Often hilarious, always interesting . . . Like the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, this book describes with humor the intersection and overlapping of two cultures.”—The Providence Journal “A humorous and introspective chronicle of a life filled with love—of family, country, and heritage.”—Jimmy Carter “Delightfully refreshing.”—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel “[Funny in Farsi] brings us closer to discovering what it means to be an American.”—San Jose Mercury News
Reviews:
(2 years ago) |
09 Feb, 2024
I found this book after some research for one of my challenges in 2016. It is wonderful! I am not sure what I expected - it is a memoir of a young Iranian girl, transplanted to the US prior to the revolution, her life and her family's life from then until now as a married mother, a writer. It is really a collection of vignettes of her extended family (which is huge!) and her parents. It is warm and delightful. And VERY funny! I love her sense of humor. And I love the knowledge and the gentle shouldering that she has so wisely imparted in her funny way. I highly recommend reading this.
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(7 months ago) |
18 Oct, 2025
Witty, memoirish short stories often featuring family, friends and acquaintances. I often repeated funny lines to my wife.
Reminds me of David Sedaris, who also reads his own audiobooks. But where Dumas tends to write light-hearted and kind stories about our common humanity, Sedaris tends to write darker, spikier, sometimes snarky stories about our eccentricities. Also, Sedaris is one of my favourite authors, and some of Dumas’ stories sounded like high school speeches.
Favourite stories:
Ch 7 “Bernice”: Fitting in?
Ch 10 “Of Mosquitos and Men”: Comfort vs adventure.
Ch 12 “Waterloo”: I knew that teachers can scar their students by telling them they will never be able to draw/do maths/swim… but this story made me realise that they do this to cover their own failure as teachers. Ouch.
Ch 20. “Girls Just Wanna Have Funds”: Terrible jobs done terribly
Ch 21. “Joyeuse Noëlle”: Like Sedaris’ Me Talk Pretty One Day. Apparently going to France and learning French is always hilarious.
Funny in Farsi also reminded me of the excellent Persepolis but without the pictures.
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(5 months ago)
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04 Jan, 2026
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(1 year ago)
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03 Jul, 2024
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