Like discovering Tolkien all over again
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One writer’s magical realism is another writer’s fantasy: the fact that this is translated fiction perhaps puts it squarely in the field of literary fiction, as well as its alluding to Zoroastrianism and other SWANA culture; but given the immediate premise of the novel, that a gowkaran tree appears in the family kitchen that only the family can see, a tree that provides every kind of fruit and vegetable; that it‘s the roost for all the birds under the sun, including the magical Simurgh; that the dozen children of the family enter a magical palace that is almost like their own house but is, well, magical—this is fantasy, and such good fantasy!

The only way that I could describe it is that it’s like staring into a parallel literary world, where the foundational myths are understood by the rest of the world but not by me, and that’s okay when it’s this well written, making the unfamiliar exciting, enticing and thrilling. It was like discovering Tolkien all over again, but rather than Icelandic sagas, we are thrust into an incredible, strange and fathomless world of Iranian myth and fantasy, even as real world revolution intrudes on the idylls of childhood and family. A must read.