The Cypress Tree [Hardcover]

"The Cypress Tree is vivid testimony to Kamin Mohammadi's ebullient, irrepressible family whose courage to endure carries them through revolution, exile and return to triumphant survival. Devoid of self-pity and full of grace, the Mohammadi family motto might as well be: 'Whatever doesn't kill me, makes me stronger.' A memoir to inspire."
--Aminatta Forna

"The heartfelt tale of a family shaped by the tumultuous drama of twentieth century Iran, 'The Cypress Tree' is a profoundly affecting meditation on the shattering experience of exile." Justin Marozzi 'The Cypress Tree is vivid testimony to Kamin Mohammadi's ebullient, irrepressible family whose courage to endure carries them through revolution, exile and return to triumphant survival. Devoid of self-pity and full of grace, the Mohammadi family motto might as well be: "Whatever doesn't kill me, makes me stronger." A memoir to inspire.' Aminatta Forna

Kamin Mohammadi was nine years old when her family fled Iran during the 1979 Revolution. Bewildered by the seismic changes in her homeland, she turned her back on the past and spent her teenage years trying to fit in with British attitudes to family, food and freedom. She was twenty-seven before she returned to Iran, drawn inexorably back by memories of her grandmother's house in Abadan, with its traditional inner courtyard, its noisy gatherings and its very walls steeped in history. The Cypress Tree is Kamin's account of her journey home, to rediscover her Iranian self and to discover for the first time the story of her family: a sprawling clan that sprang from humble roots to bloom during the affluent, Biba-clad 1960s, only to be shaken by the horrors of the Iran-Iraq War and the heartbreak of exile, and toughened by the struggle for democracy that continues today. This moving and passionate memoir is a love letter both to Kamin's extraordinary family and to Iran itself, an ancient country which has survived so much modern tumult but where joy and resilience will always triumph over despair.

Kamin Mohammadi was born in Iran in 1969 and exiled to the UK in 1979. She is an experienced journalist, travel writer and broadcaster who has written for the British and international press including The Times, the Financial Times, Harpers Bazaar, Marie Claire and the Guardian as well as co-authoring The Lonely Planet Guide to Iran. She is currently living in Italy.