Ava Homa Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Collections

Ava Homa is a successful journalist, award-winning writer, speaker, professor, and activist.

Her debut novel came out in 2020 and is titled Daughters of Smoke and Fire. It was released by HarperCollins in Canada and by ABRAMS in the United States.

In addition to writing full novels, Ava has also penned other works. She wrote Echoes from the Other Land, a collection of short stories. It was nominated for a 2011 Frank O’Conner Short Story Prize and was one of the ten winners of the 2011 CBC Reader’s Choice Contest (which ran concurrently with the Giller Prize). She was also the inaugural recipient of the PEN Canada-Humber College Writers-In-Exile Scholarship.

She has delivered speeches on a variety of topics in different places in North America and Europe. She has spoken on subjects such as human rights, writing as resistance, gender equality, media literacy, Kurdish affairs, and different topics.

Ava attended the University of Windsor in Canada and graduated with her Master’s Degree in Creative Writing. She also received a Master’s Degree in English Language and Literature from Tehran, Iran. Ava received a diploma in editing from Toronto as well.

She has been a Writer-In-Residence at places such as the Open Book Toronto and Ontario, the R.D. Lawrence Cultural Centre, Minden Hills, the George Brown College in Toronto, and Joy Kogawa House in BC.

In addition, the author has taught creative writing workshops, been a judge on writing contests, and has served the editorial board of the Write Magazine and the National Council of The Writers’ Union of Canada.

Daughters of Smoke and Fire has received a lot of positive attention, features, and awards. The book follows along with nearly fifty years of modern Kurdish history. It was picked to be a part of Roxane Gay’s Book Club. It also was awarded the 2020 Nautilus Silver Book Award for Fiction and was a finalist for the 2022 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing.

It was also picked as one of the year’s notable books by publications such as The Independent, The Wall Street Journal, and The Globe and Mail. It has done so well that it is even part of the teaching curriculum at various North American universities– such as the University of Toronto, George Mason University, and Southern Methodist University.

Echoes from the Other Land, her short story collection, has also done fairly well. It ended up being nominated for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Her poetry collection Octopus Alchemy was also picked as a finalist for the 2026 Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize.

Homa’s essays and criticism have been featured in outlets such as the Literary Hub, Literary Review of Canada, the BBC, and openDemocracy. She has also spoke internationally and at the UN in Geneva.

Today she is not only an author but an assistant professor of Creative Writing and Social Action at California State University, Monterey Bay. She teaches mystic’s literature and the poetry of Rumi at San Francisco State University. She also publishes reflections on Rumi in Substack.

Echoes from the Other Land is a 2010 book written by Ava Homa. If you have been wanting to read something interesting and new to you but don’t know where to start, consider taking on this collection of short stories from Ava Homa.

These are stories that haunt the reader, that also go out of their way to show the oppressive lives that modern women live while being part of the Islamic Republic of Iran, shown in their own individual stories.

Anis is a computer programmer who is quickly getting fed up. She has had just about enough as she has to deal with managing her career while also dealing with her unemployed husband’s bullying and criticism.

Other individuals are featured in these stories as well that help to paint a picture. Azar is a young woman who has gotten divorced and the only person that she is able to talk to is Reza. The problem is that she is only able to see him late at night when the other people are not around.

Meanwhile there is Sharmin, who has Down’s syndrome and loves Azad. But he is in love with someone else and cares for Kazhal, a blessed and beautiful woman who gets married off and divorced at just twenty years old and sees her hopes for the future wither away.

These characters are shone in a realistic way as they contend with their culture, the weight of traditional attitudes, and more to portray an existence that may be fictional but is rooted in truth. Check out Echoes from the Other Land to follow along with every word.

Daughters of Smoke and Fire is a 2020 fictional book and the debut novel from Ava Homa. If you’ve been looking for something new to add to your reading list, consider adding this story of a young woman’s fight to get freedom and justice for her brother. This is also a historic book as it is the first novel published in English from a female Kurdish writer.

The story takes place in Iran and brings the readers into the regular everyday lives of the Kurds. Leila wants to make films so that she can take the suppressed stories of her people to the world to see, but she finds that obstacles keep getting in her way. Then there is Chia, Leila’s younger brother. He gets influenced by the past torture and imprisonment of their father and wants to seek justice, so he gets more involved in political and social affairs.

He is starting to become an activist but the things that he is doing are getting even more risky. One day it comes to a head and he goes missing in Tehran. Leila is scared of what could happen and tries to find out where he is. But publishing Chia’s writing online means that she is in danger too. This is an incredible portrait of the lives and stakes that 40 million stateless Kurds are dealing with in a story you won’t want to miss. Check out Daughters of Smoke and Fire to find out more.