Prisoner of Tehran – by Marina Nemat
Reviewed by Kylie P.
click to go to the library catalogue
In January 1982, at only 16 years of age, Marina was arrested, tortured and sentenced to death for political crimes. Until then her life in Tehran was that of any other teenager, centering around school, her summer holidays and her friends. But when the propaganda of Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution entered the classroom and traditional subjects of education were suppressed she protested, and her classmates followed suit. Not long after she was arrested, as were hundreds of other youths who dared to speak out against the revolution, and she was taken and held at the notorious prison Evin.
Enduring torture she refused to give up the names of her friends and was subsequently sentenced to death only to be saved moments before her execution by a young prison guard Ali. Having close connections to the Ayatollah Ali had Marina’s sentence reduced to life on the condition that she would marry him and convert to Islam. If she refused his offer he would see to it that her family were harmed.
Lyrical, passionate, and suffused throughout with grace and sensitivity, Marina Nemat’s memoir is like no other.
