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⭐️ For media inquiries and speaking engagements, contact Laura Stanfill: books@forestavenuepress.com

⭐️ For foreign rights inquiries, contact: Sylvia Hayse Literary Agency https://www.sylviahayseliterary.com

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⭐️ Additional praise ⭐️

“A Girl Called Rumi is a magical journey to a world of mystical delights, enchantment, and revelation. It’s a page-turner that goes deep into the nature of reality beyond perception.”
—Deepak Chopra, MD

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“This stellar first novel marks the writer as an author to watch.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

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A Girl Called Rumi is a precious gift; one infused with Ari Honarvar’s experiences and brilliant writing, translation, and drawing skills. What better word to describe a book carefully wrapped in the author’s own artwork than as a gift? —Locus Magazine

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“I was utterly captivated by this book. In A Girl Called Rumi, activist artist and writer Ari Honarvar manages to weave potent Sufi teaching stories, a gripping mystery set in the midst of the upheaval of the Iran-Iraq War, and beautiful writing into a magic carpet that transported me from the moment I opened the book to the moment I reluctantly turned the last page.

Highly recommended.”
―Mirabai Starr, author of Wild Mercy and Caravan of No Despair

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“Ari Honarvar’s gorgeous debut novel, A Girl Called Rumi, shuttles between Iran and America as it grapples with the trauma of the Iran-Iraq war, the crackdown on female freedoms, and intergenerational conflict as well as the costs of resilience and forgiveness as children and parents are forced to make difficult decisions. This is a pulsating and culturally rich Iran seen through the eyes of its fables, its storytellers, its poetry, and its politics. In delicate and meditative prose, Honarvar takes her unforgettable characters― mystics, siblings, parents, best friends, enemies, fanatics― on a journey through the ‘Seven Valleys of Love’ eventually culminating in how healing happens, or doesn’t, and how to move on. Iran’s poets and poetry guide this heartfelt novel into a story as majestic as the thirty birds who make up the Simorgh, the fantastical being and mythical heartbeat of A Girl Called Rumi. “
― Soniah Kamal, author of Unmarriageable: Pride and Prejudice in Pakistan

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“From the horrors of Iran-Iraq war to the complex reality of modern-day Iran, this is a novel that is as mesmerizing and dynamic as the Persian poetry it carries.”
―Sahar Delijani, author of Children of the Jacaranda Tree

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“This is a lovely, illuminating and touching debut novel. I was moved to tears reading this manuscript. Ari Honarvar is a brilliant writer and readers hunger for stories like this―full of fascinating new worlds and redemptive outcomes.”
―Rene Denfeld, author of The Child Finder

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“Storytellers, mythical birds, and bombs collide in Honarvar’s lyrical coming-of-age novel about post-revolution Iran.”
― Marivi Soliven, author of The Mango Bride

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“A GIRL CALLED RUMI is an amazing journey full of love, adventures, and dreams across different cultures, times, and perspectives. The real and the imaginary intertwine beautifully in this masterfully written novel by Ari Honarvar that reminds us of the best literary works of all times, from Rumi’s mystical poetry to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Magic Realism.”
—Jesus Nebot, actor, director, and producer

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“I had the privilege of reading an advance copy of her debut novel, A Girl Called Rumi. My life is dedicated to social justice & migrant rights so I deal with a lot of vicarious trauma and often battle depression. This book has helped heal wounds I didn’t know I had. I’m still reaping the benefits and I know it’ll have a similar effect on others. My life has literally been changed for the better as a result of reading A GIRL CALLED RUMI as I entered a magical world called life, and was lost and captivated with all its twists and turns. Suddenly I found I was not alone.”
—Enrique Morones, founder of Border Angels & Gente Unida

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