Synopsis
Haleh Esfandiari, a 67-year-old grandmother and the founding director of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Middle East Program, details her recent Kafkaesque imprisonment in her native Iran, where she was held in solitary confinement for more than three months on absurd charges of plotting to overthrow the Islamic regime. After a routine visit to her elderly mother, Esfandiari was robbed of her passport and other personal belongings at knifepoint and held under house arrest. After hundreds of hours of harsh interrogation at the hands of government officials who believed her to be an American spy, she was arrested and incarcerated at Evin Prison, which houses many political prisoners. Esfandiari's description of her harrowing ordeal resonates as both an episode of needless personal suffering and a portrait of the paranoia which marks the contemporary state of Iran.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 2009-09-01 |
| Size | | Length: | 230 pages | | Height: | 10.0 in | | Width: | 6.5 in | | Thickness: | 1.0 in | | Weight: | 14.4 oz |
Publisher's Note
MY PRISON, MY HOME is the harrowing true story of Iranian-American scholar Haleh Esfandiari's arrest on false charges and subsequent incarceration in Evin Prison, the most notorious penitentiary in Ahmadinejad's Iran. Esfandiari's riveting, deeply personal, and illuminating first-person account of her ordeal is the inspiring tale of one woman's triumph over interrogation, intimidation, and fear. Offering a shocking, close-up view inside the paranoid mindset of the repressive Ahmadinejad regime, MY PRISON, MY HOME sheds light on a high-stakes international incident that sparked protests from some of the world's most influential public figures--including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright
Industry Reviews
"As you read Haleh Esfandiari's memoir of imprisonment in Iran, it's easy to lose track of time, both because her compelling tale draws you in and because similar situations are still playing out in her home country."
(11/15/2009)
"With its fractured chapters and frequent subheadings, MY PRISON, MY HOME sometimes lacks narrative cohesion. Its most revealing passages are those detailing experiences no doubt painful and even boring at the time....Esfandiari writes without literary affectation, to the point of flatness; but in her refusal to aggrandize or feel sorry for herself, there is an unmistakable and persistent dignity."
(11/22/2009)
"Esfandiari has written a memoir of considerable delicacy and sophistication....[She] provides us with a lucid, concise history of Iran through the twentieth century and into the first years of the twenty-first, and with it an outline of her own remarkable life across continents and cultures."
(12/03/2009)
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