A Mirror Garden: A Memoir [Paperback]

In Persia in 1924, when a child still had to worry about hostile camels in the bazaar and a nanny might spin stories at her pillow until her eyes fell shut, the extraordinary and irresistible Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian was born. From the enchanted basement storeroom where she played as a girl to the penthouse high above New York City where she would someday live, this is the delightful and inspiring story of her life as an artist, a wife and mother, a collector, and an Iranian. Here we see a mischievous girl become a spirited woman who defies tradition. Both a love story and a celebration of the warmth and elegance of Iranian culture,A Mirror Gardenis a genuine fairy tale of an exuberant heroine who has never needed rescuing.“Captivating. . . . Farmanfarmaian's sumptuously detailed recollections are a rare, insidery look at two lost worlds.” —Vogue“A Mirror Gardenintroduces the captivating story of a unique artist. Monir's art is beguiling, and so is the story of how she came to be a creator and collector of beautiful things.” —Her Majesty Queen Noor“[Farmanfarmaian's] graceful memoir maps an intrepid trajectory.” —The New Yorker“Delightful. . . . Atimeless and very timely memoir of home and self-identity.” —The San Francisco ChronicleMonir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian was born in 1924. She now lives and works in New York.

Zara Houshmand is an Iranian American writer and theater artist. She lives in Austin, Texas.Chapter OneThe evening sun was melting through the stained-glass windows when my nanny spread the bedding out on the carpets. Nanny was old and, under her scarf, completely bald. I had seen her in the bathhouse, bald as an egg. She was beautiful nonetheless, with white skin and big, deep blue eyes, like the china doll my father had brought my sister all the way from Russia when the czar was still king. My grandfather had fallen in love wil#”