Pomegranate Soup – published 2005

Set in the Irish town of Ballinacroagh, Pomegranate Soup follows the lives of three Iranian sisters; Marjan, Bahar and Layla Aminpour. Since fleeing Iran during the revolution, they have found sanctuary in their new home. Ballinacroagh gets a cultural shake-up as the Aminpour sisters open Café Babylon and introduce the intoxicating spicy aroma and flavours of Iran to the land of boiled cabbage and Guinness.

What ensues is heart-warming, as Marjan and her sisters find new friends and turn their host country’s culture shock and its objection to the unknown into the joy of new discoveries. The sisters’ happiness is soon hampered when their dark past in Iran seeps into their present. Pomegranate Soup is a fine novel, showcasing the cultures of two countries as different as night and day and how they reconcile because of three young girls and their hunger for a new lease on life.