Written with a unique blend of humour and compassion, Persian Brides explores the lives of two young Jewish girls in a Persian village at the turn of the century. The framework plot spans two days in the lives of eleven-year-old Nazie and fifteen-year-old Flora. Nazie has long been engaged to her cousin Moussa and anxiously awaits their marriage. By law, they cannot marry until she begins menstruating. Flora, by contrast, is married, pregnant and seemingly abandoned.Rabinyan's powers of description are astonishing. She creates a cast of characters brimming with vitality, and a village whose odours, colours and textures float effortlessly off the page. The result is one of the freshest and most accomplished first novels of recent years - a vibrant, tragi-comic and stunningly rich novel that resonates at every turn.