Female Life on Planet Earth

After a lifetime together, Heti thought she knew her mother inside out. She's about to discover how wrong she was.

Heti thought she knew her mother – a loving mum and grandmother, and a tough immigrant with an excellent sales record at Diamonds-R-Us. That is, until the arrival of a mysterious photo showing her mother as a young woman in Iran – draped head to toe in black robes, pointing a machine gun at a group of sobbing young women.

Still reeling from her mother's recent death, this shocking revelation about a woman she clearly never knew brings with it staggering questions. So when it falls to her to organize a memorial to mark the one-year anniversary of her mother's death, Heti calls together the women who knew her best and asks them: Who can a woman really be? And who are we?

With sparkling wit and emotional precision, Female Life on Planet Earth is the stunning new novel from award-winning author Laleh Khadivi.