BADJENS

Delphine minoui

( éditions le seuil, 160 pages, 2024)

***Short-listed for the 2024 Prix du roman FNAC***

As forceful as it is just, a novel where each word counts.

                                                    —Lire Magazine

Badjens, literally “wicked”:  In everyday Farsi, it can also mean mischievous, cheeky, impudent.  

Shiraz, Autumn 2022: At the height of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” revolt, Zahra, a 16-year-old Iranian girl climbs a dumpster, ready to burn her headscarf in public. Emboldened by the encouragement of the crowd, she delves into her past to find the strength to take action. The intimate landscape of her rebellious young life unfolds in flashbacks: the “error” of being born female, the sternness of her unloving father, the complicity with her girlfriends, the smartphone as a lifeline, the first sexual experiences, the forbidden readings, the locks of hair coming out of her “maghnaeh,” a first gesture of rebellion of her body thirsting for freedom. What if in her nickname, Badjens—chosen at birth by her mother and silent accomplice—was the key to her emancipation?

Told in the form of an interior monologue, Delphine Minoui delivers a short and magnificent coming-of-age novel that captures the irreverence, biting irony, and vivacity of an adolescent in revolt. The portrait of a new generation in turmoil.

The Franco-Iranian journalist Delphine Minoui, winner of the 2006 Albert Londres prize, has been covering news from the Near and Middle East for twenty-five years. She has lived and worked in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Egypt, and is currently based in Istanbul, Turkey. Published by Le Seuil in France, her stories, which include I write to you from Tehran (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux) and Les Passeurs de livres de Daraya (Grand Prix des lectrices ELLE 2018), have enjoyed immense success and have been translated into many languages.