With its twenty short stories, A Fall Afternoon in the Park invites the reader deep into the interior worlds of Iranian women living in both Iran and Canada.

In "Rainy Day," a little girl longs for a doll with golden hair; in "Adopted Child," a successful business professional delays having a baby but then discovers a secret; an educated woman finds herself cleaning the home of a wealthy, illiterate woman to pay the bills in the story "Adam"; and, in the titular story, a family is divided (literally) when the mother loses her job and they must make difficult decisions about their future.

In these varied, compelling snapshots of family, friendship, culture, tradition, discrimination, class issues, and struggle, Mehri Yalfani offers glimpses into the challenges and joys of immigrants? and refugees? lived experiences in the Canadian diaspora.

Mehri Yalfani was born in Hamadan, Iran. She graduated from the University of Tehran with a degree in electrical engineering and worked as an engineer for twenty years. She immigrated to Canada in 1987 with her family, and has been writing and publishing ever since. Four novels and two collections of short stories written in Farsi, her mother language, were published in Sweden, the U.S. and Canada. Her novel, Dancing In A Broken Mirror, published in Iran, was a finalist for the "Book of the Year" in 2000. She has published several books in English, including Parastoo: Stories and Poems (1995); Two Sisters (2000); and Afsaneh's Moon (2002). A Farsi version of Afsaneh's Moon was published in Iran in 2004. A volume of poetry in Farsi, Rahavard, was also published in 2004. Her short fiction has appeared in a number of American and Canadian anthologies. Her most recent collection of short fiction, The Street of Butterflies, was published in 2017. She lives and writes in Toronto.

Mehri Yalfani's profile page

"Mehri Yalfani's characters speak for themselves. Whether new to Canada or still living in an ominously changed Iran, they reveal their trials and tribulations to the reader. With her insight into lives governed by the whims of fate, Yalfani reveals the vagaries of human nature in her masterful portrayals of family dynamics."
—Rivanne Sandler, Professor emeritus, University of Toronto