We are currently unable to process orders for destinations within the EU, due to changes in tariffs. Please contact books@lrbshop.co.uk for further advice

Female Life on Planet Earth

Laleh Khadivi

£16.99

We send all orders via Royal Mail: within the UK, choose from 1st Class, 2nd Class or Special Delivery; for the rest of the world, International Standard or International Tracked. Delivery and packaging charges are calculated automatically at the checkout.

To collect orders in person from the Bookshop, choose Click and Collect at the checkout.


Oneworld Publications
24 September 2026
ISBN: 9781836432821
Hardback
224 pages

From the publisher

'THE WEIRD THING IS, I'M MORE INTERESTED IN MY MOTHER NOW SHE'S DEAD.'


'Intoxicating' KATIE
KITAMURA
'Powerful' R. O. KWON
'A spellbinding fever dream' JONATHAN
ESCOFFREY

After a lifetime together, Heti thought she knew her mother inside out. She's about to discover how wrong she was.

Heti moves in a daze of grief after her mother dies, until her life is upended by the arrival of an unmarked package containing photographs of her mother as a young woman in Iran, enveloped head to toe in a black veil, pointing a machine gun at a group of sobbing young women.

Unable to confront the one person she most wants answers from, she turns to the women around her, listening to their surprising, funny and often contradictory stories. Through them, she realises that every woman contains hidden lives and private truths.

So when it falls to her to organise a memorial marking the first anniversary of her mother's death, Heti gathers the women who knew her best and asks them: Who was my mother? And who are we?

Original, sparkling with wit and layered with tenderness, Female Life on Planet Earth is a celebration of womanhood, perfect for fans of Good Girl by Aria Aber and The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji.