Monday, July 22, 2013

Then They Came For Me: A Family's Story of Love, Captivity and Survival, by Maziar Bahari with Aimee Molloy

(hb; 2011: political nonfiction)


From the inside flap:

"When Maziar Bahari left London in June 2009 to cover Iran's presidential election, he assured his pregnant fiancée, Paola, that he'd be back in just a few days, a week at most.  Little did he know, as he kissed her good-bye, that he would spend the next three months in Iran's most notorious prison, enduring brutal interrogation sessions at the hands he knew only by his smell: Rosewater.

"For the Bahari family, wars, coups and revolutions are not distant concepts but intimate realities they have suffered for generations: Maziar's father was imprisoned by the shah in the 1950s, and his sister by the Ayatollah Khomeini in the 1980s.  Alone in his cell at Evin Prison, fearing the worst, Maziar draws strength from his memories of the courage his father and sister in the face of torture, and hears the voices speaking to him across the years.  He dreams of being with Paola in London, and imagines all that she and his rambunctious, resilient eighty-four year-old mother must be doing  to campaign for his release.  During the worst of his encounters with Rosewater, he silently repeats the names of his loved ones, calling on their love and strength to protect him and praying he will be released in time for the birth of his first child."


Review:

Then They Came For Me is a worthwhile, interesting and emotionally involving nonfiction read highlighted with Iranian political history and strange/dark humor.  Check this book out.

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Jon Stewart is directing the renamed film version, Rosewater.  The film, which Stewart also scripted, is scheduled for 2014 stateside/theatrical release. 

Gael Garcia Bernal plays Maziar Bahari.  Haluk Balginer plays Baba Akbar.  (I'll update this as soon as more information becomes available.)

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