Read by Vaneh Assadourian

The unforgettable, haunting story of a young woman's perilous fight for freedom and justice for her brother-the first novel published in English by a female Kurdish writer Set in Iran, this extraordinary debut novel takes listeners into the everyday lives of the Kurds. Leila dreams of making films to bring the suppressed stories of her people onto the global stage, but obstacles keep piling up. Leila's younger brother Chia, influenced by their father's past torture, imprisonment, and his deep-seated desire for justice, begins to engage with social and political affairs. But his activism grows increasingly risky and one day he disappears in Tehran. Seeking answers about her brother's whereabouts, Leila fears the worst and begins a campaign to save him. But when she publishes Chia's writings online, she finds herself in grave danger as well. Daughters of Smoke and Fire is an evocative portrait of the lives and stakes faced by 40 million stateless Kurds and a powerful story that brilliantly illuminates the meaning of identity and the complex bonds of family, perfect for fans of Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun. "A blisteringly powerful tale of standing up to oppression and terror…[a] haunting novel." "Vaneh Assadourian expertly narrates the first Kurdish novel in English by a female writer. She brings a light, airy voice to the character of Leila…Assadourian is precise and smooth in her pronunciation of the names of Kurdish places and people. Her capable delivery creates a seamless listening experience." "[Homa's] portrait of Kurdish life in Iran brings readers closer to lived experiences that force questions of identity, homeland, and the traumas we inherit." "Homa opened my eyes to the subtleties and challenges of the Kurdish minority in Iran and made the last fifty or so years of Iranian history feel very current. If, like me, your path to getting back on the listening train starts with fiction, this could be the one for you." "Shows us, through one family's story, the stakes faced by the Kurds. Read this book. Raise your voice. We can no longer afford the 'us and them' mentality if we are to survive." "When the Kurds are so much in the news in Iraq and Syria, the Iranian government has erected a wall of silence around its own much larger Kurdish population. This magnificent novel penetrates that wall with its story of coming of age, oppression, and death." "A haunting piece of political fiction and a gut-punch tale of an alienated Kurdish girl swimming upstream against a tide of sexism and ethnic hatred."

Mode of access: World Wide Web