Zarah Ghahramani (Persian: زاراە قهرمانی) is an Iranian-born Kurdish[1] author living in Australia who wrote My Life as a Traitor, an award-winning memoir of her imprisonment and torture in Evin Prison.

Life

Ghahramani was born and raised in Tehran, Iran in 1981 as the daughter of a Kurdish father who was a military officer under the Shah of Iran, and a mother who raised Ghahramani in the Zoroastrian faith.[2] Because Ghahramani's family strongly disagreed with the country's conservative rulers,[3] she was politically active from an early age. However, her "rage at the government was a matter of personal style as much as of principle," resulting from the "dos and don'ts" of the life she was expected to live under.[4]

Arrest and imprisonment

When Ghahramani was a 20-year-old college student at the University of Tehran, she was involved in student politics. After a period of political activism that displeased the Iranian authorities, she was arrested and imprisoned in the infamous Evin prison.[5] Charged with "inciting crimes against the people of the Islamic Republic of Iran,"[6] Ghahramani was beaten, interrogated and locked in solitary confinement. At the end of her 30-day sentence, she was released.

Because Ghahraman was at risk of being arrested again, the writer Robert Hillman helped her to escape the country.[7] She currently lives in Australia.

Writings

In 2007 Ghahramani and Hillman published My Life as a Traitor, a biographical account of Ghahramani's life and imprisonment. The book won the award for Australian Small Publisher of the Year for 2006.[8] and was shortlisted for the 2008 Prime Minister's Literary Awards.[9]

Ghahramani continues to write, most recently publishing an essay in the anthology How They See Us, edited by James Atlas.[10]

Other writings/publications by Zarah Ghahramani include:

  • Ghahramani, Zarah. Forced to Betrayal: My Escape from the Mullahs. ISBN 978-3-547-71141-7.

Notes

  1. ↑ Ghahramani, Zarah; Hillman, Robert (2009-02-01). My Life As a Traitor. A&C Black. p. 178. ISBN 978-0-7475-9338-6.
  2. ↑ "Veiled Threats" by James Buchan, The Guardian Newspaper, March 1, 2008.
  3. ↑ "Thirty Days in Iran's Worst Prison" by Kiera Butler, Mother Jones, Jan. 4, 2008.
  4. ↑ "Color Her Protest Pink (and Floral)" by William Grimes, The New York Times, January 9, 2008.
  5. ↑ "Thirty Days in Iran's Worst Prison" by Kiera Butler, Mother Jones, Jan. 4, 2008.
  6. ↑ "My Life as a Traitor Archived February 10, 2008, at the Wayback Machine" by Zarah Ghahramani & Robert Hillman, Scribe Publications.
  7. ↑ "A life on the edge" by Robert Hillman, Herald Sun, September 22, 2006.
  8. ↑ "Extract from My Life as a Traitor" (PDF). Scribe Publications. Retrieved 17 January 2008.
  9. ↑ "Book Authors of the Times: Zarah Ghahramani". The New York Times. Retrieved 2023-07-13.
  10. ↑ "Book review: 'How They See Us,' edited by James Atlas" by Jim Landers, The Dallas Morning News, January 3, 2010.
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