A Girl in Paris: A Persian Encounter with the West

At the age of 17, Shusha Guppy left Iran and her family to study at the Sorbonne in Paris. Diving into the unknown–a world of unimagined freedoms and unexplored horizons–Shusha immersed herself in the vibrant artistic life of Paris’ Left Bank, where she met Samuel Beckett, Sydney Bechet, and Albert Camus and was encouraged to write and record her first songs by Jacques Prévert. As richly embroidered and lyrical as the Persian poetry and music that was so much a part of her heritage, Shusha Guppy’s sparkling memoir, the sequel to her acclaimed first memoir The Blindfold Horse , is simultaneously a vivid portrait of 1950s Paris, an astute depiction of the confrontation between East and West, and a moving account of the pain of exile.