A Persian Childhood is a humorous and tender evocation of a past age. An autobiographical account of life in Persia during the 1920s and 1930s as seen through a child's eyes.

One early spring day, the author suddenly realized that she was alive and began discussing the loneliness of God with Azra, who was not a slave, but was not quite free either. Stranger things were to happen later. Persia was then a remote and archaic country, its inhabitants simple, deeply devout and extremely colourful. The author's father was a Cossack officer and became Governor of Isfahan and later Military Governor of Tehran. He was closely associated with Reza Shah (founder of the Pahlavi dynasty) and the army, and witnessed with his family unique and historic events. Pari Courtauld was educated at the Zoroastrian School in Tehran and came to England in 1946.