Book Talk: Man of My Time with Dalia Sofer

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

Set in Tehran and New York, Man of My Time is the story of Hamid Mozaffarian, who is as alienated from himself as he is from the world. After decades of working with ambivalence for the Iranian government, Hamid travels on a diplomatic mission to New York, where he encounters his estranged family and retrieves the ashes of his father. Tucked into a mint tin in Hamid’s pocket, the ashes propel him into an excavation of a lifetime of betrayals, forcing him to confront his past. Exploring variations of loss, Man of My Time is not only about family and memory, but also about the relationship between captor and captive, country and citizen, and individual and history. Sofer will discuss the depiction of conflict not as a clash of opponents, but as an interconnection of two entities; this includes the conflict of each character with him or herself. She will also address the fragmentation caused by conflict, the impossibility to tell a fixed story, and the impulse to search for the origin of things when no knowable origins exist. Finally, she will speak about creating a narrative that reflects the brokenness of a world—and a man—in search of their own humanity. Dalia Sofer is the author of the novels Man of My Time (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020)—a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and The Septembers of Shiraz (Ecco Press, 2007)—selected as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and published in sixteen countries. A recipient of a Whiting Award, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, and the Sami Rohr Choice Award, she has contributed essays and reviews to various publications, including The New York Times Book Review, The LA Review of Books, and The Believer. Born in Tehran, Iran, Sofer currently lives in New York City.