Shirin is a literary novel that moves between Afghanistan and suburban Sydney, tracing the long shadow of violence across memory, exile, and survival. It follows a Hazara refugee living under her father’s control in Merrylands as she navigates one decisive year from a childhood marked by the imposition of silence to a girlhood shaped by risk, defiance, and love. Shirin’s protagonist, ‘Aghai’, finds strength and support in her own imagination, in the defiant wisdom of poet Omar Khayyam, and in her bond with Kylie, a new friend who reflects both the present and the echoes of her past. Shirin interweaves domestic coercion with collective catastrophe. Through stark, uncompromising images the novel bears witness to massacre, exile, and the enduring trauma carried by refugees long after they reach places of supposed safety. Yet Shirin is not consumed by horror alone. It is a novel of endurance: of writing against erasure, of love against fear, of naming as an act of survival. Shirin examines the moral authority of doctrines that legitimise control and silence. It asks urgent questions about complicity, distance, and who is allowed to speak within cultures shaped by faith, tradition, and power. At once a coming-of-age narrative, a forbidden love story, and a moral reckoning, the novel offers an unflinching yet humane portrayal of resilience, courage, and the small victories that sustain life under pressure. Shirin illuminates experiences rarely represented in Australian literature, inviting readers to witness, reflect upon and find connections with the lives of those whose stories are too often silenced.
Taqi Bakhtyari is a novelist from Hazaristan, a mountainous region in central Afghanistan, whose literary work explores themes of history, identity, and the quest for meaning. He is the author of two novels and seven short stories published in Persian. Set against a backdrop of entrenched injustice and violence, his narratives feature characters who resist and question prevailing systems of dominance, evolving beyond rigid identities in their quest for freedom and meaning. Since relocating to Sydney in 2014, he has earned a degree in Creative Writing from Western Sydney University and embarked on writing in English. Previously, he studied journalism at Balkh University in Mazar-e-Sharif and worked as editor-in-chief of Negah-e-Naw, a weekly paper in Kabul. His forthcoming third novel, Shirin, marks his English-language debut.
* An earlier Persian language novel by the author created fierce backlash from conservative Islamic circles, including a fatwa against the author; a novel that illuminates experiences of members of our society rarely represented in Australian literature;
* English language literature that brings together both Persian epic and suburban Australian poetic influences.
