RABINYAN, Dorit << back to list Dorit Rabinyan was born in Kfar Saba in 1972 to a Persian-Jewish family and published her first novel at the age of 22. In addition to her two novels, Rabinyan wrote a television script for Israel commercial television, “Shuli’s Fiance” which won the Israeli Academy Award for the best drama of 1997. She has been awarded the Yitzhak Vinner Prize (1996), The Jewish Wingate Quarterly Award (1999). Bibliography & Foreign sales OUR WEDDINGS (Fiction) 1999 or STRAND OF A THOUSAND PEARLS The novel tells the sad love stories of the Azizyan family, who settled in Israel from homes in Persia, India and Turkey. Rights sold to: USA, Random House; UK, Bloomsbury; Germany, Kruger Verlag; Holland, Vassallucci; Italy, Piemme (reverted); Portugal, Difel SA (reverted); Spain, Grijalbo Mondadori; Bokforlaget Natur och Kultur, Sweden; Hungary, Europa; Turkey, Dogan Kitapcilik; Israel, Am Oved Reviews “There is auto-eroticism almost like that in the orientalist harem paintings, but this time from within, through the female perspective...glowing descriptive passages that are simply a pleasure to read.” Ha’aretz “It is easy to be captivated by the magic of Our Weddings, because of the richness of colors and odors that accompanies the unfolding of the plot. ... like visiting the Spring Festival of the Persian community, where one might see colors, smell odors, hear sounds and declare ,’this is great’.” Maariv “You read Rabinyan’s book with held breath. Her rich language overflows with imagery. This language is imprinted with symbols of the material flesh, singing the praise of the feminine body.” Yediot Ahronot “Aside from her descriptive powers, Rabinyan’s great strength is her perceptive portrayal of the thousand frustrations…Rabinyan’s imagery once again delights with its flavors and colors The minute details of routine are rendered with tenderness and humor.” The Observer “… best of all, (Rabinyan) makes us pity her characters without showing any pity for them herself…” Times Literary Supplement “Strand of a Thousand Pearls is a fiercely feminine book and there are exquisite scenes of grooming and primping and longing and separation of members of a close-knit clan… Rabinyan has written a lovely story with compelling characters showcased subtly against the realities of contemporary life in the Middle East.” USA TODAY “This is a literary love story of crushed dreams…if you fancy a lush, lyrical and slightly mad read, you will enjoy this extraordinary tale.” Glamour “Strand of a Thousand Pearls flows over readers with scents and aromas, textures and tastes. It is less a story than a portrait of a family caught at the intersection of the ancient and the contemporary.” LA Times PERSIAN BRIDES (Fiction) 1995 Persian Brides explores the lives of two young Jewish girls in a Persian village at the turn of the century. The framework plot spans two days in the lives of eleven-year-old Nazie and fifteen-year-old Flora. Rights sold to: USA, Braziller; UK, Canongate; Greece, Livani; Spain, Martinez Roca SA; Spain (Castillian) Lumen; Portugal, Difel SA; Germany, Goldman; Holland, Vassallucci; Holland (Paperback) De Geus; Italian, Neri Pozza; France, Denoel; Turkey, Dogan Kitapcilik; Korea, Dulnyouk Publishing; Israel, Am Oved Reviews “...This life, these people, so strange to us, call out from these pages with a reality more intense than ours. Richly written, perfectly controlled, and I would say desperately sad if it weren’t for these streaks of joy.” Fay Weldon (UK) “...lush, lyrical and disturbing...(the) marvelously digressive style and rich prose give the story the feel of a night-long wedding feast.” The New York Times Book Review “The characters, comic, sodden, and sly, spill out of this small book like clowns in a ragtag circus.” The New Yorker “The energy of the writing is remarkable: Rabinyan maintains the feverish atmosphere of the novel until the very end...In Persian Brides the dream and waking worlds have merged. It is as if we have entered the wildest of Chagall’s paintings.” Literary Review “This intensely visual novel is set in Arabian Night territory and told by a Scheherazade as enthralling but less ladylike than the original ... remarkable extravaganza.” The Sunday Telegraph “Dorit Rabinyan creates a world at once cruel and sensual, charged with odors, spices and colors that evoke the difficult condition of Persian women in a patriarchal society. She blends legends and reality, dreams and fantasy, past and present and weaves it into an epic that reads like A Thousand and One Nights.” Courrier Geneve “A book that smells of watermelon, meatballs, spittle and blood. The novel evokes Gabriel Garcia Marquez as it blends the lives of people, places, strange rituals, dreams, legends, the past and the present, fantasy and reality.” L’Hebdo