The Guardian:

By Arianne Shahvisi

When I was 12, a bespectacled boy with a shock of thick hair and his forearm in plaster gave me the first Harry Potter book. We were at that age when gifts need little occasion, and this marked the last day of our first year of secondary school. It was 1999, and the book was unknown to me. I was mildly embarrassed by its childish watercolour cover, but I dutifully packed it in my satchel when, two days later, my family flew to Iran for our six-week summer holiday. On the large, faded floor cushions of my grandparents’ apartment in Tehran’s central district, I read the book aloud, flanked by my twin younger sisters, while the adults took their siesta and scorched air and car horns filtered through the mosquito blinds. We fell for it instantly, rooting for Harry as he was transported from life as a misfit in a gloomy suburban cupboard to the secret world of wizardry in which he found fellowship, adventure and belonging.

In the years that followed, I would read each successive book to my sisters. Even from the start, they were too old to be read to, but it was more...

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