Prisoner of Tehran

“Marina Nemat’s beautiful book...is an act of bravery...as well as compassion. Her words, well wrought and heartfelt, expose her shocking dilemma and the terrible system that tried to defile her.”
Globe and Mail

On January 15, 1982 Marina Nemat was arrested and sentenced to death for political crimes. It was a deadly time in Ayatollah Khomeini’s new regime, when her mildly critical article of the state in her high school newspaper put her on a watch list. Her fate was sealed when she complained that the teacher of calculus was substituting “government propaganda” for math. 

Marina was seized from her family’s apartment in Tehran and taken to Evin prison. In a bizarre twist, one of the Revolutionary Guards, Ali, fell in love with her. Using his family connections, he plucked her from the firing squad with only minutes to spare.

In return, he demanded that she convert from Catholicism to Islam and marry him. If she didn’t, he said, with the dizzying combination of terror and tenderness that would characterize their relationship for the next two years, he would ensure that her family was harmed. After Ali was gunned down by rival factions and died in her arms, Marina was eventually released.

For years, Marina Nemat, a waitress at a suburban Toronto restaurant, the wife of an electrical engineer, and mother of two sons, kept her secret until the silence became too burdensome. This important and enthralling book is a major international literary event.

• Bestseller in France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Taiwan, Canada

“. ..the portrait of a world only too real, where women’s lives are cheap -- but not this one.”

Jacquelyn Mitchard
Author of The Deep End of the Ocean

http://www.marinanemat.com/index.html