Prisoner of Tehran

"Prisoner of Tehran" - Review

by M. Tomycz

Marina Nemat's gripping memoir, Prisoner of Tehran, is an extraordinary, riveting and heartbreaking read. It tells of her extraordinary survival in Tehran's notorious Evin prison during the Iranian revolution.

Born during the time of the Shah, Marina was in her teens when the revolution occurred and the Ayatollah Khomeini took power. Her life as an innocent, idealistic youth changed drastically under the new regime. Suddenly everything she loved - books, music, even the color pink - was considered Satanic and against the law.

Her former teachers were replaced by young, inexperienced revolutionary guards - an elite, idealogical military force, established by the Ayatollah. When she asked her new calculus teacher to please teach the subject at hand (rather than government propaganda), she was asked to leave the class. Most of her classmates stood up and left with her. This immediately labeled them as anti-revolutionaries and enemies of Islam.

Before long she was arrested, like thousands of other Iranian teens, and sent to Evin prison - a place synonymous with injustice, torture and death. After being interrogated, lashed, and put on trial - she was sentenced to death at the tender age of 16. Moments before the firing squad ended her life, a guard who had fallen in love with her, was able to save her.

Decades later, after she had left Iran and built a new life in Canada, Marina was plagued by nightmares, despair and survivors guilt. She couldn't make peace with the fact that she had been spared, while her friends had lost their lives. "Closure is a myth. It does not exist." she said in an interview. But by bearing witness to what had transpired behind those walls, she hoped to find healing and forgiveness.

"Imagine if Anne Frank had never written her diary. The human side of history would be lost, " Nemat says. Her memoir does just that - gives a human face to the revolution in Iran. It is both a testament to the spirit of survival, as well as a loving tribute to those young men and women who didn't survive Evin.