ABOUT:
Aylin Sedighi Gabbaizadeh was born and raised in Iran and moved to the United States at the age of thirteen. She learned to read and write English from the Berenstain Bears' series. She has an undergraduate degree from Stony Brook University and a Masters from New York University. Aylin is currently completing her Master of Social Work, where her studies have deepened her interest in the intersection of trauma, resilience, identity, and storytelling.
Aylin has countless memories of growing up in Iran, the beauty, its sounds and its tastes. Under The Persimmon Tree was born of these memories and of the stories Aylin heard growing up from the women in her life.
Many of these matriarchs were child brides, treated as second-class citizens within their own religious community, while facing discrimination from the larger Iranian society.The stories of the women that surrounded Aylin her entire life inspired her to write about the lives of women and girls growing up in Iran in the 1930's. Their strength and resilience, and all that they endured, were the motivation she needed to ensure these voices, often missing from bookstore shelves and literary fiction, to be presented to the world, lest they be forgotten.
Aylin lives in New York with her family. Under The Persimmon Tree is her first Novel.