Blood and Water

An Anglo-Iranian Love Story

By: Katharine Quarmby

Narrated by: Polly Lee

Length: 1 hr and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

In this poignant book, the writer and investigative journalist Katharine Quarmby describes the 20-year search for her Iranian birth father and her own adoption history. She links this narrative to the wider story that she uncovered during her search - of the many missing Iranian military fathers, who disappeared after the Iranian Revolution, but who are still sought by so many Iranian love-children in Britain today. Her narrative is a meditation on the importance of both birth and adoptive families - and a challenge to those who would set aside the importance of race as a factor in adoption. She describes what it feels like to search and discover your roots, in a moving story that takes her to Iran undercover, on a secret visit - a visit that changes her forever. The love of the parents who raised her gave her the courage to find her birth father. This is her tribute to both her families.

©2013 Katharine Quarmby (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Culture Clash and Incredible Love

This is probably the best of the audible shorts I've listened to, and I've listened to a LOT. This is a true story of an Iranian soldier who met and fell in love with a young English woman in the 1960s, resulting in a pregnancy. The young woman, a working class student, was not prepared to keep the baby, yet the Iranian father wanted the baby, even though he was a soldier, and asked the woman to marry him. She refused. The father traveled back to England to see the child, asking for custody, which was denied. The dilemma at the time of a mixed race baby, the darker skin of an Iranian with that of the European light skin of the mother almost marked the baby girl as unadoptable, but after careful examination . . . including watching to see if her nose had the noticable hook that many middle easterners have, she was thought to appear "light" enough to be accepted by English parents. She was soon adopted by wonderful parents, the father with deep English roots, but the mother with a history more like Katherine's, having escaped from her native country as a refugee and came to the UK. The openness and love given to her by her adoptive parents and the honesty with which they discussed her beginnings, telling her that she had had three mothers, the one who birthed her, the one who cared for her in the orphanage, and now her forever mother, cleared the way for Katherine's acceptance early on of who she was. But it never quenched her thirst to learn about her natural father and his homeland. Since sealed adoptions were the norm for the 1960s, it took many years for Katherine to gain access to her own adoption records. I was astounded at her tenacity and resiliance as she moved forward to discover if her birth father was still alive. Then I was doubly sickened and saddened as she detailed life in Iran of the 1960s and the changes which have occured since. Although Katherine certainly would not have been accepted had her birth father been allowed custody of her and taken her back to Iran as an infant, the Iran at that time versus today are infinitely different. I urge you to listen to this sensitive and heartfelt account of Katherine's birth, adoption and search for her birth father, and learn more about the culture and beauty of Iran.