Arts & Entertainment

Newton Novelist Tackles Taboo Subject in First Book

Newton writer Sara Farizan tackled a complex and controversial subject in her first novel.

The Lesley University graduate’s young adult book “If You Could Be Mine,” hits stores on Tuesday, Aug. 20, which follows two childhood friends in Iran who have a hidden lesbian romance, according to a profile of Farizan in the Boston Herald.

Homosexual relationships can be punished by prison sentences, physical attacks and even death in Iran. The novel was her thesis at Lesley University, and she shares some similarities to the main characters – she is a lesbian and has an Iranian background – but the story is fictional, she told the Herald.

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Farizan will read from her book at the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge on Sept. 17.


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