Kimiâ Sadr

Kimiâ Sadr is the novel’s protagonist and its narrator. Kimiâ’s style of narration is non-linear and moves freely between the past and present. In the present moment, Kimiâ is a young woman in a relationship with another woman, a Flemish woman named Anna. The two women have made friends with Pierre, and together the three have plans of raising a child together. To do so, Kimiâ and Pierre must fool a series of doctors into believing that they are a couple incapable of conceiving. By the novel’s end, Kimiâ is pregnant with twins.

Through flashbacks, the reader learns more about Kimiâ’s childhood and her relationship with her family. She is the third daughter of Sara and Darius, and a younger sister to both Leïli and Mina. Perhaps one of the most central stories from Kimiâ’s childhood is that of her birth...