Description

In the Persian royal court, even death is a privilege.

At the funeral of a Persian nobleman, Jamila watches the mourning rites and understands something she has always known but never quite named: her own death will pass unremarked, her life unacknowledged.

An Abyssinian slave in the royal court of Iran’s Qajar dynasty in the late nineteenth century, Jamila has learned to survive. But survival is not enough. Driven by the fear of being forgotten, she and Abimelech, a fellow Abyssinian slave and eunuch, begin to navigate the treacherous politics of the court, from the deadly intrigues of the harem to the radicals gathering beyond the palace walls.

Atmospheric, richly imagined and deeply human, In the Palace of Flowers is a historical novel about what it means to seek meaning and recognition in a world that refuses to see you.