This is a tiny book that carries an unusual amount of weight. At under 150 pages, it follows five Iranian women in 1953 Tehran whose lives eventually intertwine, and although each woman wants something different, they are all searching for freedom in some form. Freedom from men, from social expectations, from shame, from violence, from the feeling that their bodies and lives do not fully belong to them. I appreciated that Parsipur never simplifies these women into symbols or stereotypes but allows them to be complex, flawed, vulnerable, and entirely human. This is definitely not a plot-heavy book where everything is explained clearly. It is more about emotions, freedom, womanhood, trauma, and the invisible cages women are forced to live inside.

Parsipur’s writing feels deceptively simple because underneath it, there is so much symbolism and emotional depth. A woman turning into a tree, dreamlike conversations, sudden shifts between fantasy and reality, nothing seems arbitrary. Magical realism, which is really folkloric, almost deadpan, is employed to convey the unrepresentable aspects of emotion and trauma. At times, the book was really perplexing for me to read.

One more element of Parsipur's writing that appealed to me was how she writes about horrifying things in a tone that is almost completely flat. A brother kills his sister in the same register as someone describing what they had for breakfast. This is a deliberate choice, and it really helped the horror land and leave an immense impact.

The novel's historical context further adds value to the importance of the novel. The novel itself was subsequently banned in Iran, and Parsipur had been censored and imprisoned because she dared to talk about female sexuality, defied patriarchy and political systems so openly. It becomes all the more chilling knowing such a history exists behind the novel.

Women without Men is not a perfect book. But it is a necessary one, and it stays with you longer than books three times its length.