My Life as a Traitor

It was part youthful zeal and part teen crush that led Zarah Ghahramani to join a student protest movement. But dabbling in student politics was to lead to disaster when one day she was bundled into a car and taken to Tehran's most notorious prison: Evin. Far from her comfortable middle-class home, Zarah had to find refuge from her ruthless interrogators in a windowless concrete cell. Day after day she was humiliated and viciously beaten until all she wanted was simply to die, her spirit broken. In "My Life as a Traitor", Zarah tells the story of her horrifying ordeal and her eventual release, and describes the ways it changed the naive nineteen-year-old she once was into a woman of courage and determination. 'Harrowing ... Ghahramani writes in a spare, eloquent prose style that reflects both her child's view of the world before arriving at Evin and the pared-down perceptions of her prison experience' New York Times 'My Life as a Traitor is a riveting story. It is a celebration of human courage under duress and a savage indictment of the oppressive regime of Iran. It shocks, angers, saddens, and inspires' Khaled Hosseini 'In Ghahramani's graceful, chilling memoir, her naivete gives way to fearless insights about her country and herself. Questioning the status quo made her a traitor to a fundamentalist regime, but in this searingly honest, brave book, she's nothing short of heroic' People 'Brilliant - heart-breaking and life-affirming' Yasmin Alibhai-Brown