TEHRAN – Persian versions of the novels “The Silent Patient” and “The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake” will be unveiled during a special ceremony in Tehran on Thursday.

A number of top literati, including Javad Mojabi and Kayhan Bahmani, will be attending the ceremony that will be held at the Ketabshaar Bookstore, publisher Khazeh has announced.  

The English-Cypriot writer Alex Michaelides’ debut novel “The Silent Patient” has been translated by Saman Shahraki.

The 2019 book is about a young woman, Alicia Berenson, whose life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to a fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.

Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public’s imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.

Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. He intends to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband, but he has his own motivations.

Leila Hiedari is the translator of American writer Aimee Bender’s novel “The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake”.

The book tells the story of Rose Edelstein who bites into her mother’s homemade lemon-chocolate cake on the eve of her ninth birthday, and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother’s emotions in the slice. 

To her horror, she finds that her cheerful mother tastes of despair. Soon, she’s privy to the secret knowledge that most families keep hidden: her father’s detachment, her mother’s transgression, her brother’s increasing retreat from the world. But there are some family secrets that even her cursed taste buds can’t discern.

Photo: This combination photo shows the front covers of the Persian versions of “The Silent Patient” by Alex Michaelides and “The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake” by Aimee Bender.

RM/MMS/YAW