The Saffron Kitchen, by Yasmin Crowther

When the orphaned Saeed arrives in London to live with his aunt Maryam, he sets off a series of events which forces her to confront the past she left in Iran half a century earlier. Difficult as Maryam may find this, she at least knows her past. Her journey upsets the complacent life of her daughter, Sara, as she learns about the woman who is her mother. Told in their alternating voices, Crowther’s debut novel is full of the colours and smells of metropolitan England and the mountains of Iran. But in the dislocated lives of Maryam and Sara, it is the cupboards of London which are “filled with henna, herbs, dried figs and limes” and the smells of the Tube that are found in the fast-growing cities of Iran. While Crowther’s attempt to evoke mood and place occasionally overwhelms her narrative, The Saffron Kitchen marks the collision between a past where choices were too few and a present where choice itself is taken for granted.