Half a Cup of Sand and Sky: A Novel Kindle Edition

“Bjursten immerses readers in a life, a nation, and an era. . .” —Publishers Weekly, Editor's Pick“Brilliantly layered and beautifully written, this PEN America finalist is both a searing character portrait and an incisive examination of Iranian history, which is at once moving and illuminating.” —The Independent Review of Books, Reviewer’s PickIt is 1977, and the anti-shah protests at Tehran University are intensifying, but Amineh is not like her peers who want a say in the future of their country. Her thoughts are on the beautiful literature of another era and her past of rose harvests and Sufi poetry evenings under the desert sky. A chance encounter with Farzad, an opposition leader and disarmament activist, will thrust her into a life she didn’t ask for and didn’t want. Nobody wanted the tyranny that is quickly turning worse than the tyranny it replaced. But maybe Amineh has been looking at her life all wrong—Maybe the thing she is seeking is not in the past at all. Read more