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WORK TITLE: LACANDON DREAMS
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WEBSITE: www.katayounmedhat.com
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COUNTRY: United Kingdom
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PERSONAL
Born in Iran; immigrated to Germany.
EDUCATION:Studied at London School of Oriental and African Studies; University College London, M.Sc.; earned Ph.D.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. Has also worked as an intercultural psychotherapist .
AWARDS:Leapfrog Fiction Contest winner, 2016, for The Quality of Mercy.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Katayoun Medhat is an Iranian-born writer who grew up in Germany. She studied anthropology at university, eventually earning a Ph.D. with a focus in medical anthropology on cultural negotiation in mental health care. Her research in this area brought her into contact with Navajo communities in the United States, leading to a personal fascination with their social practices. Medhat used this to form the basis for her “Milagro Mystery” series.
Medhat published her first novel, The Quality of Mercy, in 2017. White policeman Franz “K” Kafka teams up with Redwater Navajo Tribal Police tracker Robbie Begay in Milagro in an attempt to get away from the world and his reputation. When the carefully arranged corpse of twenty-eight-year-old Noah George is found in Chimney Rock, K and Begay take on the investigation. George’s family is infamous for its bad luck. K and Begay get to know each other and learn from the other’s style and technique while looking into George’s likely murder. A Publishers Weekly contributor observed that Medhat “uses pathos and humor, tragedy and comedy, to spin an entertaining and original mystery.” The same reviewer found the novel to be both “excellent” and “refreshing.”
In 2019 Medhat published Lacandon Dreams, a sequel to her debut novel. K enjoys giving XOX Energy Corporation boss Lucky Easton a hard time, knowing that he has been violating the terms of his DWI arrest. He also despises the fact that XOX is clearly destroying Quorum Valley’s ecosystem with its fracking activities. K also looks into the secret online life of fifteen-year-old “good girl” Luisa after her mother reports her missing after not coming home from school. K finds that she has a bad reputation with her online personae. K enlists Begay to get involved, despite him still recovering from a gunshot wound. Luisa’s grandmother, however, is calm over the disappearance, reporting that a dream she has had lets her know everything will be alright. K and Begay attempt to decode the dream while looking for other leads into Luisa’s disappearance. A contributor to Kirkus Reviews remarked that “Medhat’s second novel, torn between solving mysteries and delving into Southwestern cultural details, is more successful in the latter.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 2019, review of Lacandon Dreams.
Publishers Weekly, July 24, 2017, review of The Quality of Mercy, p. 43.
ONLINE
Katayoun Medhat, https://www.katayounmedhat.com (August 22, 2019).
Katayoun was born in Iran and raised in Germany. A couple of years in a Catholic boarding school in rural Germany helped her to appreciate the meaning of culture shock. Her decision to study Anthropology in (then) West Berlin may or may not have been related to these earlier experiences. Working her way down the list of courses least likely to yield a job, Katayoun moved to London where she attempted to learn Berber at the School of Oriental and African Studies and, moving on, gained an MSc in Social Anthropology at University College London. Viewed retrospectively Katayoun’s portfolio of motley jobs may not have been an entire waste of time, as they taught many valuable life lessons. Training as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist helped to make sense of Anthropology- and vice versa. Clinical therapeutic practice in various settings induced enduring awe and admiration for the human capacity for resilience. A PhD in medical anthropology on cultural negotiation in mental health care led to the Navajo Nation in the Southwestern United States.
Katayoun’s debut novel ‘The Quality of Mercy’ featuring renegade cop Franz Kafka was conceived during a grey English November to assuage a yearning for the Southwest’s vast landscapes and turquoise skies; and is an homage to the Diné (Navajo) and the unique Diné sense of humour.
‘The Quality of Mercy’ was winner of the 2016 Leapfrog Fiction Contest.
Franz Kafka and Robbie Begay soon established that they mean to continue cooperating on solving other cases in their somewhat irreverent, not to say chaotic way, and so are being most willingly obliged by Katayoun with ‘Lacandon Dreams’ Milagro Mystery # 2, due to be published in September 2019 and “Flyover Country’, Milagro Mystery # 3, taking shape right now.
Katayoun Medhat was raised in Iran and Germany, studied anthropology in Berlin and London, and worked in an adolescent psychiatric unit, learning much about human resilience. She practiced as an intercultural psychotherapist before earning her PhD in medical anthropology, which led her to the Navajo Nation.
Medhat, Katayoun LACANDON DREAMS Leapfrog (Adult Fiction) $17.00 9, 1 ISBN: 978-1-948585-04-0
San Matteo County cop Franz Kafka, known as "K," investigates a missing girl, unprepared for what he might find or how.
It's no hardship for K (The Quality of Mercy, 2017) to visit the XOX Energy Corporation's headquarters in hopes of rattling Lucky Easton. After all, what kind of cop would K be if he weren't also a defender of nature, including fighting the guys who run the oil company that's destroying Quorum Valley's ecosystem? And Easton has been violating the terms of a DWI that K got him for, notably earning the label "motherfracker" in the process. K thinks nothing of the woman who's in Easton's office at the time until she shows up to report that her 15-year-old sister is missing. Luisa is two hours and twenty minutes late getting home from school, so K isn't too worried, but Maribel stresses that Luisa is a good girl who has no reason to disappear. After looking into it just a bit, K learns that however good Luisa is, she seems to have some sort of dark streak, evidenced by a very not-good-girl web presence. But all may not be what it seems. It's hard to know if Maribel wants to portray Luisa as good because of the reputation a Latinx might have with her fellow white high schoolers, like Easton's twin daughters. Though sometime collaborator Redwater Navajo Tribal Police Officer Robbie Begay is recovering from a gunshot wound, he's game to help K, who especially welcomes his insight into the serenity Luisa's grandmother has about the girl's disappearance. From the pueblo, Luisa's grandmother has a dream that tells her all is well. If K and Begay can only interpret the dream successfully, they may be able to find Luisa.
Medhat's second novel, torn between solving mysteries and delving into Southwestern cultural details, is more successful in the latter.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Medhat, Katayoun: LACANDON DREAMS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 July 2019. Gale General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A591279175/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=b3ffd216. Accessed 10 Aug. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A591279175
* The Quality of Mercy: A Milagro Mystery
Katayoun Medhat. Leapfrog (Consortium, dist.), $16 trade paper (286p) ISBN 978-1935248-95-8
Tony Hillerman fans will welcome Medhat's excellent debut and series launch, a refreshing take on Navajo country's crime, culture, and history. After the discovery of a man's body carefully laid out near Chimney Rock, white policeman Franz Kafka (aka K), who has settled in fictional Milagro, San Matteo County ("one of the few places left in the Western hemisphere--and possibly the Eastern too--where his name rings no bells"), teams with Robbie Begay, a tracker with the Redwater Navajo Tribal Police. At the crime scene, Begay makes a number of impressive deductions from shoe and tire marks. Dental records identify the victim as 28-year-old Noah George, a member of a Navajo family known for its bad luck. As they investigate Noah's troubled past, Begay and K swap stories, insights, and insults that brilliantly illuminate the daily obstacles that Native Americans encounter. Medhat, who holds a Ph.D. in medical anthropology, uses pathos and humor, tragedy and comedy, to spin an entertaining and original mystery. (Sept.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Quality of Mercy: A Milagro Mystery." Publishers Weekly, 24 July 2017, p. 43. Gale General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A500133709/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=56a16601. Accessed 10 Aug. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A500133709