My First Book
Interview with debut author Roza Nozari
Roza Nozari is a writer, artist, and therapist based in Tkaronto ("Toronto"). Known as YallaRoza on social media, her work weaves together writing and visual art to share stories of wounding, healing, and community. Her work invites radical re-imaginings of our world, towards one more invested in collective healing and liberation. She is the illustrator of three children’s books: Little People Big Dreams' Mindy Kaling (2021), Fluffy and The Stars (2023), and The Anti-Racist Kitchen (2023). Her illustrations have been featured locally and internationally—from university campuses to sports arenas and pride festivals.
My First Book: All The Parts We Exile
From a queer Muslim woman and artist, a generous, insightful memoir that traces her journey toward radical self-acceptance and of exile from her ancestral home.
Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Date Published: February 25, 2025
Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / LGBTQ+ / Arab & Middle Eastern / Women
"An overall intensely emotional, personal excavation of the self, All the Parts We Exile is interspersed with emotive black-and-white self-portraits (by Nozari, naturally) and occasional moments of relief – usually evoked by descriptions of Persian food-related experiences and traditions. Easy to read, but by no means an easy read, written by a voice that has fought hard to come forth and demand our attention." —Scout Magazine
How did you become a writer?
Honestly, I did not intend on becoming a writer; I (very luckily) fell into it. A friend of mine wanted me to illustrate their children’s book, and through them, I met their agent. At the time, I had been posting illustrations on social media and writing long captions about the art, or about my life. That meeting with the agent was the first time someone told me I was a writer. She opened the door to publishing and I felt compelled (curious! excited!) to walk through it. Who wouldn’t? I feel incredibly privileged to be a writer.
What is your book about?
All the Parts We Exile is a coming of age story that follows my journey as a queer Iranian-Canadian grappling with self-abandonment and self-acceptance. Woven throughout are stories from my mother’s past. Just as I am putting the pieces together of who I am, I am putting the pieces together of who she is. Core to the story is our own struggle to be radically honest, to understand each other across language, culture, creed, and even time.
Why did you need to tell this story?
For one, timing. I was lucky that both I and my mother were in a place where we were willing to share our stories so vulnerably and openly. Because aging is unpredictable, I wanted to do this now, especially. I wanted to write this at a time when she could meaningfully participate in the process with me, with full capacity to negotiate her own boundaries, just as I was negotiating mine. I wanted her to be able to hold the book in her hands and to know her story matters, too.
I also think when there are so few stories about people like you – in this case, queer Iranians and queer Muslims – it becomes increasingly important to write your story. To write is to say we exist!
What was your journey from idea to publication?
Originally, the memoir was supposed to be focused on my journey towards queerness. When I met Amanda at Knopf, I think she really saw the heart of the story: the connection between my mother and I. Rather than solely following my life, my mother’s life became an increasingly significant part of the story, too. Two people who are grappling with our pasts – sometimes together, sometimes on our own. The story became about more than my queerness; it became a story about shame and radical honesty, home and belonging, self-abandonment and self-acceptance, trauma and healing.
It also became a reckoning with goodness – with being a good daughter, a good woman, a good Muslim, a good queer, a good victim/survivor. There is so much that is sacrificed – both by myself and by my mother – to fit these boxes. And there are things that we sacrifice in choosing not to fit, too.
What was your playlist when writing this book (either literally or thematically?)
I definitely listened to a lot of music while I was writing. The music depended on what I was writing about. If I was writing about home and family in Iran, I listened to Iranian music from the 60s, 70s and 80s – Googoosh, Hayedeh, Marjan. If I was writing about my early adult years, it was a lot of angsty music from the 90s and early 2000s – Ani DiFranco, Fiona Apple, Tegan and Sara.
What do you hope readers will take away after reading ATPWE?
I think that most of us are complicated, messy humans. And most of us are just doing our best. If readers feel a little less ashamed of their own pasts, the writing has done what it was supposed to.
What do you know now that your first book has been published that you wish you knew when you first had the inspiration to write it?
There’s definitely a conversation I wish I had with myself before writing. Perhaps if I had re-read Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider, I would have started here.
I wish I would have said this to myself: Whether or not you share your stories, you’re going to feel afraid. If you keep quiet, you’ll fear the power and control certain people, places or stories still have over you. If you write, you’ll fear the judgement, the criticism and punishment you may face. There is no way around the fear. So, write afraid. Be unwilling to sacrifice your dignity for the comfort of other’s. These stories are yours to tell. Widen your shoulders, root down into your values, steady your hand and write.
What’s next for you?
I think, queer fiction!
All The Parts We Exile by Roza Nozari
As the youngest of three daughters, and the only one born in Canada soon after her parents' emigration from Iran, Roza Nozari began her life hungry for a sense of belonging. From her early years, she shared a passion for Iranian cuisine with her mother and craved stories of their ancestral home. Eventually they visited and she fell in love with its sights and smells, and with the warm embrace of their extended family. Yet Roza sensed something was amiss with her mother's happy, well-rehearsed story of their original departure.   
As Roza grew older, this longing for home transformed into a desire for inner understanding and liberation. She was lit up by the feminist texts in her women’s studies courses, and shared radical ideas with her mother—who in turn shared more of her past, from protesting for the Islamic revolution to her ambivalence about getting married. In this memoir, Roza braids the narrative of her mother’s life together with her own on-going story of self, as she arrives at, then rejects, her queer identity, eventually finds belonging in queer spaces and within queer Iranian histories, and learns the truth about her family’s move to Canada.
All the Parts We Exile is a memoir of dualities: mother and daughter, home and away, shame and self-acceptance, conflict and peace, love and pain—and the stories that exist within and between them. In sharp, emotionally honest and funny prose, Roza tenderly explores the grief around the parts we exile and the joy of those we hold close in order to be true to our deepest selves.