I Will Greet the Sun Again

Author Khashayar J. Khabushani
Narrator Sean Rohani
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Publish Date 3 August 2023
Run Time 5 hours and 22 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Family life fiction, Modern and contemporary fiction, Narrative theme: Coming of age, Narrative theme: Displacement, exile, migration, Narrative theme: Identity / belonging, Narrative theme: Love and relationships, Narrative theme: Sense of place, Narrative theme: Social issues.

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

A searing, sunlit debut about the powerful bonds that make and break an Iranian-American family

Three young brothers leave Los Angeles in the dead of night for Iran, taken by their father from their mother to a country and an ancestral home they barely recognize. They return to the Valley months later, spit back into American life and changed in inexorable ways. Under the dazzling light of the California sun, our protagonist, the youngest brother, begins to piece together a childhood shattered by his father's violence, a queer adolescence marked by a shy, secret love affair with a boy he meets on the basketball court, and his ever-changing status as a Muslim in America at the turn of the new millennium.

Lyrical and open-hearted, I WILL GREET THE SUN AGAIN is an unforgettable portrait of a family being torn apart, and a boy emerging from its ashes.

'I WILL GREET THE SUN AGAIN is exquisite, heart-breaking, incredibly beautiful. The whole narrative thrums with a bright, warm longing. You can feel the sunshine of LA and Iran, the rhythm of Khashayar J Khabushani's voice. This is a novel to return to again and again.' Caleb Azumah Nelson, award-winning, bestselling author of OPEN WATER

©2023 Khashayar J. Khabushani (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

A triumph… tender and gut-wrenching… a book of astonishing accomplishment and bravery

Guardian

Exquisite, heart-breaking, incredibly beautiful

Caleb Azumah Nelson

Life-affirming… Khabushani is a talented writer

Sunday Times

A heartbreaking debut

New York Times

A moving debut, teeming with desire and light, and quietly devastating. Khashayar J. Khabushani’s voice keens and surprises, and at the center of the book we find K, tenderhearted, spirit glowing like a beacon

Justin Torres, author of WE THE ANIMALS

Khashayar J. Khabushani’s debut novel – told from the perspective of an Iranian American boy whose immigrant parents are struggling to build a life in L.A. – is a brutally intimate reckoning with coming of age as a Muslim after 9/11, the confusion of navigating conflicting worlds, and the burning desire to belong

New York Magazine

Khashayar J. Khabushani’s debut novel, devoted to adolescence in all its glory and devastation, is a marvel. Reading it, I felt the thrill and joy of encountering a major writer at the beginning of his career

Megha Majumdar, author of A BURNING

A work of meticulous care and genuine candor, one that shies away from no earthly event, yet spiritually soars. To read it is to experience the contradictions of the weighty and the exalted, to witness a self forged by both brutality and love. Khabushani is a poetic visionary, as generous as he is brave

Heidi Julavits, author of THE FOLDED CLOCK and THE VANISHERS

Khashayar J. Khabushani has taken a coming-of-age story and flooded it with light. His sentences are as delicate as ripe berries, yet the voice manages to be intrepid, determined and clear. This is a gorgeous and wrenching debut from a writer I’ll be following for many years to come

Catherine Lacey, author of NOBODY IS EVER MISSING

Why wasn’t Khabushani’s I Will Greet the Sun Again around when I was ten, when I was twenty? This is a book I’ve dreamt of reading my whole life… I will be thinking about these characters for the rest of my life

Kaveh Akbar, author of PILGRIM BELL

Deeply moving and courageous, I Will Greet the Sun Again explores the sense of loss and violence inherent in the immigrant experience. An intimate and unflinching story about the ways in which we hurt each other and how we all need love and acceptance to survive

Sahar Delijani, author of CHILDREN OF THE JACARANDA TREE

A tender, heartbreaking portrait of a sweet child living in a broken world. Khabushani is an incredibly talented writer

Imbolo Mbue, author of BEHOLD THE DREAMERS and HOW BEAUTIFUL WE WERE

‘Tender and touching…a brave and beautifully written story about belonging and finding one’s place in the world.’

The Bookseller

A gut wrenching debut that follows a young boy in adolescence as he is uprooted from Los Angeles to Iran, who then faces the challenge of growing into his queer identity on his return to America

Elle

This terrific debut by a young American with Iranian heritage is a story about formative change and recalibration.

Big Issue

‘A tale of diaspora that is as gutting as it is tender, I Will Greet the Sun Again is an inquiry into what we can lay claim to: the collective haunting of a lost country, queerness that is barely allowed to take shape, grief and fear that can, at any moment, explode into violence. Every word, deft and unassuming, shatters‘

Skinny

A writer to watch

Daily Mail

Sensitively told, I Will Greet The Sun Again is a poetic, sweeping love letter to the specific hinterland known only to adolescents and immigrants, each seeking to belong yet repeatedly, destructively torn between two opposing versions of themselves.

Buzz Magazine

A stunning debut for the summer… this story is a poignant and beautifully crafted depiction of home, family and growing up

Glamour Magazine

I WILL GREET THE SUN AGAIN is exquisite, heart-breaking, incredibly beautiful. The whole narrative thrums with a bright, warm longing. You can feel the sunshine of LA and Iran, the rhythm of Khashayar J Khabushani’s voice. This is a novel to return to again and again.

Caleb Azumah Nelson, award-winning, bestselling author of OPEN WATER

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