The Walking

Iran. 1979. The mullahs have come to power and they want everyone to know. Two young Kurdish brothers, Saladin and Ali, are forced to swear their loyalty to the new regime by taking part in a massacre. In the traumatic aftermath of the killing they flee. For Saladin, the younger, the decision to travel west is exciting; this is the direction of Hollywood, Los Angeles, America. But his euphoria is not enough for the reluctant Ali, who belongs, heart and soul, to the mountain town of his birth. As they cross the treacherous Zagros mountains by foot to Istanbul, to the Azores by freighter and finally as smuggled cargo aboard a plane to Los Angeles, Saladin realises that his dream of a better future can only be fulfilled alone. And as he walks along the hot, shimmering beaches of the promised land, unbearably dislocated, Saladin must define who he will become - and who he's always been. Haunting and beautifully-written, The Walking is a story of exodus; of those many people torn between the lure of home and the lure of hope. Khadivi is capable of lyricism and poetry, whether conjuring up nature, elegiac feelings; or sensations associated with travel ... This is a brave and haunting book about displacement and identity Independent A strangely distancing style, as though the self-conscious beauty of her prose and the distressing events she writes about are ultimately irreconcilable, which in many ways they are Sunday Herald This is a story of exodus, a haunting novel of the immigrant experience in America that reflects the author's own experiences as a refugee of the Islamic Revolution Bookseller