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.

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.

Roza Nozari is a queer illustrator and writer of color. She is most known for her bold designs and diverse depictions of community and is a firm believer that we should all see ourselves meaningfully reflected in art. In her illustrations, she centers those often at the margins of the art world—BIPOC and 2SLGBTQ+ people, among others. Roza passionately illustrates on topics related to community, mental health and social justice. Through illustration, she envisions a world that is affirming, compassionate and uplifting to all. Roza lives in Tkaronto/Toronto with her partner, their quirky dog named Bones and their bonus kid, Ollie.

Roza Nozari's profile page

“In this luminous work, Roza Nozari bridges the void between what’s been lost and what endures. Her story doesn't seek to erase the fractures but to honor them, showing how, even in a life of displacement, pieces of “home” can be found in the quietest, most unexpected corners. All the Parts We Exile reminds us how trauma shapes us, not by breaking us, but by etching traces of where we’ve been, making us whole again, piece by piece.” —Samra Habib, author of We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir

“Thought-provoking and meditative, All the Parts We Exile brings the plight of strong willed daughters, immigrant parents and their personal histories into clear empathetic light. Nozari’s prose is nuanced and wrought with imagery, vivid and eloquent all at once. The memoir is symphonic in scope: orchestrating excruciating rites of familial identity, radical self-acceptance, loss, and personal growth. A talented writer and artist, Nozari deftly charts a moving history that is both complex and mesmerizing, sweeping across timelines and through the queer spaces of Toronto and Iran. A dazzling opus of what it means to be a person grasping for answers of belonging and emerging transformed. Nozari’s journey invites readers to rethink the immigrant family narrative.” —Lindsay Wong, author of The Woo-Woo and Tell Me Pleasant Things about Immortality
“With sparkling prose and captivating storytelling, All the Parts We Exile gifts insight into a life both relatable and unique. Roza Nozari does not equivocate, evade or apologize. Here is a story that is hard, soft, witty and touching.” —Jenny Heijun Wills, author of Everything and Nothing At All

“All the Parts We Exile wraps an immigrant, coming of age, and coming out story around each other, probing the question: how do we exist and fully belong across identities? A fearless exploration of the visceral longing for home, a reckoning with trauma, grief, and displacement, and an ode to the healing power of artmaking, this is an exquisitely written, honest, tender and enthralling memoir.” —Carmen Aguirre, author of Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter

“In this compelling memoir, Roza Nozari pieces together her mother’s past while grappling with her own queerness. All the Parts We Exile is a portrait of a family of women trying their best with what they have, sorting through the detritus of migration and shame to find the parts of themselves they lost along the way.” —Catherine Hernandez, author and screenwriter of Scarborough the book and film