First Year Common Book Reading Guide and Lesson Plan
Prisoner of Tehran: A memoir
By Marina Nemat
This packet is designed to …
Table of Contents
Introduction to working with Prisoner of Tehran
Major Dates to remember in FYI class
Connecting Prisoner of Tehran to FYI and FYE components
Unit Guides
Part 1: Chapters 1 – 8
Part 2: Chapters 9 – 15
Part 3: Chapters 16 – end
In Class Group Work Ideas
Major Project Possibilities
 Papers
 Blue book exam
Additional Resources
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First Year Common Book Reading Guide and Lesson Plan
Working with Prisoner of Tehran
Nemat’s memoir is an extraordinary story. A girl is imprisoned without more radical cause than an
expectation that her calculus class would focus on calculus. After imprisonment, she escapes execution
because a prison guard falls in love with her. He seeks a pardon for her from the Ayatolla himself, and
pulls her away from her death at the last moment possible. She is forced to marry this guard to save her
family and herself. Ironically, the guard’s family provides her with a sense of family that she never knew
in her own. When her guard/husband is killed, his family is instrumental in finally returning her to her
home of origin.
The sometimes unfathomable circumstances Marina Nemat recounts might recall Paul Rusesabagina’s
unflinching account of what people are capable of (both the good and the bad) in times of crisis. In
Prisoner of Tehran, however, Nemat does not position herself as a hero in the way that Rusesabagina
does (while continuing to insist he is “an ordinary man”.) Still, Nemat’s memoir explores many themes
that have been brought forward by both of our previous common books, An Ordinary Man and A Lesson
Before Dying: belonging and community, understanding across difference, agency and restraint,
revenge and forgiveness, and silence and voice.
Though every book presents challenges and complexities – a prominent one in this case is the potential
that students will see Iran’s restrictive Islamic government as representative of Islam and Muslims in
general – we believe that Prisoner of Tehran can ignite student’s curiosity and provoke rich
conversation about the ways that this woman’s story can illuminate our own experiences in an
increasingly diverse and interconnected world. State how we’ll contextualize, bring in voices, recognize
differences within groups
Each person and each FYI team or learning community will find their own way to use this book, to
connect it to other important ideas, resources and texts that fit your style and concerns, and the focus
of your classes. Don’t feel obligated to “teach the book” like a literature instructor; rather, we hope you
will approach the book as a prompt for discussion and reflection around important topics and skills that
are central to our FYI class, our FYE program, and our department and college mission. (See Connecting
to FYE goals, below).
Relevant Themes:
Intro to this section, leading into ….
engaging diversity (working together, amidst difference;
forming community, amidst difference); fostering accountability and responsibility (development of an
individual moral compass, reflecting on the individual in relationship to family, community and other
institutions, examining the shaping and function of ideals and ideology); developing effective citizenship
and integrated learning (consideration of how knowledge and skills can be applied to our daily lives, and
how these translate across areas of study, across communities, and across a variety of activities and
work as we continue to develop); and effective communication (exploring writing as a framework to
give experience meaning, writing as healing, writing as public action).
In the chart below, we have mapped how teachers might connect central themes in Prisoner of Tehran
with the Student Learning Outcomes and Student Development Outcomes for 1525W, the common
question, and StrengthsQuest activities. Many of these course components overlap or reinforce similar
concepts and threads in the memoir.
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First Year Common Book Reading Guide and Lesson Plan
Engaging Diversity (SLO)
Book: Provides some sense of history and the diversity of Iranian
society, including Marina’s family’s own religious and ethnic background;
Marina makes connections across difference within many communities
(family, church, inmates, friends, nation)
Students: Consider own background and communities they are part of
Accountability/Responsibility Book: Marina makes choices that have major consequences for herself
(SLO)
and others, including choices related to religion, marriage, sexuality, and
when and with whom to share her story. She exercises many forms of
agency but also faces many forms of restraint. What values or ethics
guide her choices? How does she address questions of revenge and
forgiveness?
Effective Citizenship /
Integrated Learning/
Lifelong Learning
(SDO)
Effective Communication
(SDO)
StrengthsQuest
Students: Consider own choices and consequences of choices – what
forms of agency are open to them and what restraints limits their
agency?
Book: Nemat includes early stories about her relationships with her
parents, her grandmother, her school, her first love, etc. How do these
early experiences shape Marina and what role do they play in her future
development and actions? What supports and defines Marina’s sense of
responsibility to herself and to others?
Students: Consider experiences that we learn from and how we apply
them to other areas of our life.
Book: At the end of the memoir, Nemat advocates speaking out and
telling stories. We also see the power of the written and spoken word
highlighted in other places: the bookstore, her friend’s body, at
protests, . . . .
Students: What issues do students see in the world around them? What
stories need to be told, written about, publicized? What needs to be
communicated and what approaches would be most effective?
Book: Marina, even at a young age, seems to know her own strengths
and weaknesses; she sees certain experiences and events as ways to
developing talents into strengths, Marina is able to see others’ strengths
(even her captor’s) and this enables her often to communicate across
difference.
Students: Identify own strengths and abilities and how these might be
honed in important ways to facilitate development in challenging areas.
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First Year Common Book Reading Guide and Lesson Plan
A few things to remember:



It is not critical that students master every name, political event or episode in the book.
Depending on what themes you choose to emphasize, you will use specific information in the
book to provide support or evidence for developing those particular ideas.
Many of the themes in this book connect well to all of our first-year programming. Engaging
diversity (developing collaboration and community), and effective communication (the power of
written/spoken voice), for instance, are central to learning and development outcomes of
1525W.
What you choose to emphasize will, of course, depend upon your course’s disciplinary
perspective and the the elements of the text and the themes that best fit your FYI team’s
interest, focus, or your discipline:
o The food-themed FYI might be interested in the way that cooking and food represents a
connection and kind of nurturing and community for Marina with her husband’s family
that was not present in her own family. This team might also be interested in exploring
the role that deprivation plays in Marina’s experience. Students might also be curious
about what kind of nutrition is afforded prisoners incarcerated here in the US.
Logistics:
However you choose to engage the book, remember that:
a) Marina will be here on November ##, so students should have finished or begun work with the book
at this point;
b) Providing time for both open discussion and structured assignments is important;
c) You can integrate themes from the book into topics for other assignments. Required elements for
writing assignments in the Writing Intensive FYI include: common book-related writing, experiential
writing, reflective (journal) writing, and research-based writing, the capstone presentation. Your
work with Nemat’s memoir can accomplish or be connected to many of these.
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First Year Common Book Reading Guide and Lesson Plan
Unit Guides:
This reading guide divides the book into three “chunks”; we envisioned the readings to be spread
over three weeks, but you should feel free to decide for yourselves how much time to devote to the
book and what kind of reading schedule fits your course. The reading guide, the sample activities and
projects that follow are meant to inspire. We hope you will take pieces that you are interested in,
toss out pieces you are not, and revise everything in ways that work well for you and your team.
Our aspiration is to help all FYI sections provide a framework for student’s reading of Prisoner of
Tehran that will make sense in the context of the common question and the central goals of the FYI
and FYE.
Part One: Chapters 1-8 (pp. 1-102)
MAJOR TOPICS/THEMES





Human rights: We see violations of three human rights: freedom from torture and degrading
treatment; freedom of opinion; the right to peaceful assembly and association.
Idealists and Ideologues: The Islamist Revolution in Iran is launched by idealists like Arash opposing
the injustices of the Shah’s regime. But the injustices of the new Islamist government invite
reflection on the difference between ideal and real outcomes of political movements.
Prison: It is difficult to understand why Marina Nemat is kept in prison for so long or what outcome
the government expects from her imprisonment. What seems to be the purpose of Evin prison—
punishment, rehabilitation, or something else? What should be purpose of prisons?
Religious faith and religious diversity
Actions and their consequences: In this repressive political atmosphere, some characters advocate
silence as safer than speaking out, while others argue that people have to speak up and stop being
afraid.
CRITICAL CONCEPTS AND TERMS



Political prisoner
Christian Catholicism and Islam (Zoroastrianism mentioned but not explained)
Distinction between Islam (the religion) and Iran’s Islamic government
CHAPTER SYNOPSES
Chapter 1
Marina is safe and successful in Canada, but “This is when I lost the ability to sleep…. I was a witness and
I had to tell my story” (2). So she begins writing. Her husband reads her manuscript and asks forgiveness
“for not asking” (3).
Chapter 2
Imprisonment and torture
Chapter begins with the daytime events of January 15, 1982, just before Marina is arrested. Then she
gives background about events in the fall of 1981, when some of her friends were imprisoned in Evin.
Then she returns to January 15, 1982, when she is arrested in the evening and taken to Evin Prison. This
chapter also gives Marina’s family history (Christians who left Russia after revolution. It ends with
Marina’s interrogation and torture (14-21).
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First Year Common Book Reading Guide and Lesson Plan
Chapter 3
“Grandma had been my refuge…and now she was gone”
Marina describes her relationship with grandmother (23-28), the history of parents’ marriage (28), and
her grandmother’s illness and death (31-36).
Chapter 4
Firing squad
Marina is taken from Evin Prison to witness her friends’ arrests; she herself is taken to be executed, but
Ali saves her at the last minute after appealing directly to Ayatollah Khomeini to reduce her sentence to
life in prison. Ali returns her to the prison, where she is frightened and confused about why Ali saved
her.
Chapter 5
Books
Marina describes her mother’s temper and her threat to leave the family. Marina takes refuge in books
and discovers Albert’s second-hand bookstore, her lending library for three years till Albert leaves for
America. Marina finds acceptance and affection at Sarah’s house; attends government-funded
Zoroastrian junior high school for girls of diverse faiths.
Chapter 6
Sarah in Room 7
Marina awakens in Evin Prison. Ali takes her to Building 246, Room 7, which is about 25’ x 17’ and
houses about 50 girls; Sarah tells her torture story and news that Gita was executed
Chapter 7
Arash
Marina remembers her family’s cottage by the Caspian Sea, where she was free to move about,
spending whole days outside with her friends. She explores religious beliefs with Muslim and Christian
friends as the Islamic revolution is building. Her boyfriend Arash (active in Islamist movement against
the Shah) disappears after the Jaleh Square protest, where the shah’s army gunned down protesters.
Chapter 8
Taraneh, Sheida and Sarah in Evin
Marina observes Muslim rituals as practiced by her cellmates; Taraneh asks about rape of virgins; Sarah
is hysterical after hearing firing squad. Marina reflects on her near-death experience and on whether
Arash would have supported the new government created by the Islamist revolution (“No. Arash was
good and kind; he would never have accepted such injustice. Maybe we would both have ended up in
Evin” [99])
Part Two: Chapters 9-15 (pp. 103-195)
MAJOR TOPICS/THEMES



Friendship and loyalty
Family
Agency and constraint
CRITICAL CONCEPTS AND TERMS

Hejab and the Muslim value of female modesty
CHAPTER SYNOPSES
Chapter 9
Revolution: “Four seasons of loss and grief”
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First Year Common Book Reading Guide and Lesson Plan
Marina describes life in the city now as dominated by curfews, tanks and fear. Schools have been closed,
and the streets are empty except for angry and potentially violent demonstrations. Sarah tries to recruit
Marina to join the protests against the Shah. Marina explains hejab. Marina describes her relationship
with Arash’s family; she goes to them when she discovers that Arash was killed at the Jaleh Square
protest. Key historical events are introduced (Jaleh Square massacre, American embassy hostages, Shah
forced in exile; Khomeini returns from exile and declares provisional government)
Chapter 10
Losing hope
Marina’s parents visit and she decides not to tell them she has been sentenced to life in prison. Sarah
learns that Sirus is dead; she responds by starting what will become a ritual—writing good memories on
her body. After narrowly escaping Hamehd torture, Marina thinks “Did the world know about us? Was
anyone trying to save us? Deep in my heart I knew the answer to both of these questions was no” (127).
Sarah celebrates her seventeenth birthday in prison with Sarah and Taraneh. Sarah attempts suicide by
hanging.
Chapter 11
The Strike
Marina tells the story of walking out of Calculus class, precipitating the student strike that led to her
arrest. Khanoom Bahman shows her a list of the school’s troublemakers, with her name on it. A crackdown is imposed all over the city and even her cottage life is restricted. Marina considers suicide, but
rejects the idea. Key historical events are introduced (Iran/Iraq war of 1980; Ferdosi Square protest
against repression of the revolutionary government, Abolhassan Banisadr is elected president).
Chapter 12
Taraneh is executed
Taraneh and five others sentenced to death are called on the loudspeaker. The inmates spend the day
dreading the sound of gunshots, which they hear that night.
Chapter 13
Ali proposes—and demands a yes
Ali declares his love, says he wants to marry Marina and gives her three days to decide. He also tells her
that if she tries to escape this marriage, he will punish her family and Andre.
Chapter 14
A perpetual state of mourning
Marina describes her first meeting with Andre and her friendship with Aram, Arash’s brother, who will
soon emigrate. Marina arranges for a translation of her grandmother’s life-writing and learns that her
grandmother’s first love was killed at a demonstration against the Russian czar. Marina risks going to
rallies and briefly meets with Shahrzad, a political activist. Gita is arrested and Sarah panics.
Chapter 15
Conversion
Marina agrees to marry Ali and requests move to Room 7, away from her friends (Marina does not want
them to know of her marriage). Her health deteriorates as she agonizes over Taraneh’s death; after
nightmares, headaches, vomiting, hospitalization, Ali nurses her with chicken soup and takes her out of
Evin for drives. Marina meets Ali’s family and decides she respects his father. She converts to Islam in
preparation for marriage, but worries about betraying her God. Marina is allowed to see Andre “to say
goodbye.”
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First Year Common Book Reading Guide and Lesson Plan
Part Three: Chapters 16-Epilogue (pp. 197-306)
MAJOR TOPICS/THEMES
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

Abuse, revenge, empathy and forgiveness
Finding a meaning for life that includes traumatic experiences of the past.
Silence and speaking out, on both the personal level and the political level.
CRITICAL CONCEPTS AND TERMS

CHAPTER SYNOPSES
Chapter 16
The interrogator’s wife
When Ali takes her outside Evin, Marina develops a friendship with Ali’s sister, Akram. Marina confronts
Ali about murdering people in Evin; he retaliates by raping her. After deciding that “I had to find some
goodness in this pain or it was going to drown me,” Marina asks Ali to help Sarah, and he asks her to
help Mina, a young girl recovering from torture. Marina tries to convince Mina to live her life.
Chapter 17
Marina has honest conversations with Ali’s sister Akram and with Ali about his work at Evin. After
Marina accuses Ali of responsibility for deaths at Evin, he says he has tried to make changes and says, “In
a way, we’re both captives.” Marina rejects suicide again. When Marina discovers she is pregnant, she
rethinks her feelings about Ali. When Ali is murdered in front of Marina, as retaliation for resigning his
job, Marina miscarries and grieves for both her baby and Ali. Ali’s family arranges for Marina to be
released from prison; she reunites with her family and Andre.
Chapter 18
After Marina is released from prison, she realized that “No one wanted to know… Ali had been right.
Home wasn’t the same, because I wasn’t the same. The comfortable, safe innocence of my childhood
was lost for good” (270). Marina and Andre prepare to marry, but she cannot bring herself to tell him
about Ali and everything else that happened to her.
Epilogue
The death of a Canadian-Iranian journalist in Evin prison gets international press. Marina writes, “If the
world had paid attention earlier…many innocent lives would have been saved. But the world had
remained silent, partly because witnesses like me had been afraid to speak up. But enough was enough.
I was not going to let fear hold me captive any longer” (301).
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First Year Common Book Reading Guide and Lesson Plan
Chronology of events in the book
April 22, 1965 Marina is born
Sept 7, 1978
Jaleh Square massacre
Nov 4, 1979
Muslim Students Following the Line of the Imam seize American embassy & 52 hostages
Jan 16, 1979
Shah is forced in exile
February 1979 Khomeini returns from exile
1980
Iran/Iraq war
Early 1980
Abolhassan Banisadr becomes first elected president of Iran (p. 133)
June 1981
Banisadr impeached for opposing executions and warning against dictatorship (165)
August 1981
Banisadr’s replacement is killed by bomb exploded in prime minister’s office (165)
1982
Marina imprisoned at age 16
Sept 26, 1983 Ali murdered
Mar 26, 1984
Marina is released from prison (258)
July 18, 1985
Marina and Andre marry
March 1987
Marina and Andre leave Tehran for University of Sistan and Baluchestan
1988
Iran/Iraq war ends
1991
Marina arrives in Canada (sees brother after 12 years; he left for Canada in 1979)
2000
Marina is haunted by memories and is compelled to start writing her story
2003
Media report: Canadian-Iranian journalist Zahra Kazemi dies from injuries in Evin prison
2005
Details of Zahra Kazemi’s torture are revealed by doctor
2007
Prisoner of Tehran is published
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First Year Common Book Reading Guide and Lesson Plan
Major Project Possibilities
Intro to the section..Blah, blah blah…
1. Can one person make a difference? In this book, the answer is both yes and no. Write an essay in
which you explore Marina Nemat’s experience of individual people making a difference and those
same people (or others) being unable to make a difference. What factors seem to determine a
person’s ability to create change? Ultimately, how far does she decide one person’s power can
reach?
2. By the end of the book, Marina Nemat has discovered a few things she knows for sure. In class we
have discussed these statements of belief:
I had to find some goodness in this pain or it was going to drown me (214)
God gives life and He is the only one who can take it away (237)
Life is precious, don’t let go, live again (241)
Violence is pointless (245-246)
If the world had paid attention earlier…many innocent lives would have been saved. But the
world had remained silent, partly because witnesses like me had been afraid to speak up (301).
Write an essay in which you explore her path toward discovering any one of those beliefs. What
ideas, experiences, or events in the book led her to that lesson? Then consider this question: Each of
these ideas seems universally accepted. If so, why are they also so frequently violated?
3. Although this book is Marina Nemat’s personal story, her experience should be important to anyone
who cares about human rights, particularly freedom from torture and degrading treatment;
freedom of opinion and the right to peaceful assembly and association. If you were asked to speak
to a student group on campus about the average citizen’s responsibility to protect these rights,
which aspecgts of Marina Nemat’s story might you use to support your position? (Note: To write this
essay, you’ll have to decide what your position is. What do you personally believe is the average
person’s responsibility in this area?)
4. It is difficult to understand why Marina Nemat is kept in prison for so long or what outcome the
government expects from her imprisonment. What seems to be the purpose of Evin prison—
punishment, rehabilitation, or something else? What should be purpose of prisons?
5. Many stories of people who survived trauma emphasize that person’s amazing resilience and ability
to overcome the aftereffects of traumatic experiences. But not all survivor stories end this way and
clearly not all survivors would say their stories have happy endings. Which message would you say
Marina Nemat has chosen? Write an essay in which you…
6. In the “Acknowledgements” at the end of the book, Nemat thanks her husband, Andre, and writes,
“I strongly believe you are the most honest and faithful individual God has ever created. Your
goodness defies laws on nature” (303). Nemat’s portrait of her first husband, Ali, is far more
complicated. Write an essay in which you explore Nemat’s (and your own) view of Ali….
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First Year Common Book Reading Guide and Lesson Plan
Blue Book Exam prompts
1. Blue book questions and a few activities/assignment to build this.
How does Nemat’s story respond to the question of how one person can make a difference?
What does her experience say about the possibilities and limitations on individual action?
What is the relationship between human suffering and individual development? Use specific
examples from Prisoner of Iran to develop your response.
Should we consider Nemat’s story a call to action or a story of individual healing? Explain your
response using specific examples from her memoir.
What individual strengths are evident in Marina’s early life that become essential tools for her
later survival? Discuss Marina’s individual development over the course of the novel: where
does she begin and where does she end?
Supporting Activities:
Pivotal moments – full group, small group development of analysis of one – use quote
two-sided reading journal, mapping the text
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------A Paper Assignment (with or without research?) and a few activities/assignments to build this.
Personal: Consider the act of writing in your own life. What has it meant or accomplished? Where and
how is writing presented in Nemat’s memoir? OR write a “memoir” – Making the private public. . . ..
Experiential: Visit, Volunteer at Women’s Prison Book Project and reflect on your experience and how it
connects to Nemat’s book
Research: What aspect of Nemat’s story are you still wanting to understand more fully? Select an area
to do more contextual research to support a deeper grasp of the issues and events that surround
Nemat’s experience.
2. Video clips: Multiple Disciplinary perspectives on the book
3. Panel discussion or Guest Lecture?
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First Year Common Book Reading Guide and Lesson Plan
Prisoner of Tehran In-Class Group Work Ideas:
Gen. Q: Should we suggest these in conjunction with Parts One, Two, Three, or together?
From Kris’s contextual resources:
Small group analysis of quote, two-sided reading journal, mapping the text
From Barbara’s student development goals:
Consider the ways that Marina and her cellmates support and sustain one another. What roles
do they play? To what extent are these roles that we might see in any group working together?
Chapter titles: Nemat numbers her chapters, but does not title them. Have students work in
groups to identify major plot developments and themes of each chapter, then decide on a title.
Ask each group to present their proposed title to the rest of the class and describe their decision
process. Use disagreements that arise within or among groups as an opportunity to discuss
diversity of reader response. How does your point of view, life experience, shape the “messages”
you glean from reading? [Learning outcome: reading comprehension/review, effective
communication, engaging diversity]
Engaging diversity SLO:
Self/character assessment: Students use the “mosaic of diversity” (see attached) to identify
personal, family, and cultural attributes that shape their points of view. On the same day, or
during a subsequent class, have students work in small groups to fill in the mosaic for characters
in Prisoner of Tehran: Marina, Ali, Arash. Discuss how mosaic shapes response to specific
situations, using an example from the book [fill in possibilities here, based on answer to general
Q.; Marina’s response to torture; Ali’s response to increasing extremism at Evin]
Accountability/Responsibility SLO:
Agency/constraint:
If students have completed the “mosaic of diversity” self-assessment during a prior class, have
them re-examine it through the lens of “choice.” Which factors involve choice (e.g., we can’t
choose our age; how much choice--if any--do we have about our gender, race, economic status,
religion)? Add to mosaic other sources of constraint on individual behavior (laws, social codes,
etc.); repeat activity for characters’ mosaics. What forces limit Marina’s choices? What freedoms
is she able to exercise within these limits? Discuss in small or large groups. [Mosaic also
responds to StrengthsQuest goals]
If students have not used the “mosaic of diversity,” an alternative activity could have students
map an “architecture of agency and constraint.” Students work individually to map personal
freedoms they are allowed, together with constraints on action and choice (parents, society,
government). How do these forces both limit and enable different forms of personal freedom?
Students then discuss “maps” in small groups, and work together to map the “architecture of
agency and constraint” for Marina Nemat. Present maps to larger group for discussion.
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First Year Common Book Reading Guide and Lesson Plan
Role playing: Hand out cards to students in small groups identifying different characters and a
particular interaction in book (e.g., Ali’s proposal, prison interrogation, conversation with fellow
prison survivor). Students respond to situation from characters’ viewpoints (e.g., What might
Marina’s mother advise her to do under torture to reveal her friends’ names? What is Ali’s
justification for compelling Marina to marry him?).
Engaging Diversity Assignment/In-class activity:
Assign students individual or group short-term research on Christian, Muslim, Zoroastrian faith
in general and as practiced by different groups in Iran. This could proceed in several ways:
1. Hand out index cards with research prompts: e.g., What percentage of the population in Iran is
Christian? Find a description the advantages of hejab by a Muslim woman.
2. Have students identify their own questions on cards; exchange and discuss in class to
minimize redundancy and ensure diversity of inquiry.
During the following class, have students discuss findings in C/M/Z groups, then pass cards to
another group (i.e., CM; MZ; ZC). Repeat (MC; ZM; CZ). Talk as a large group
about what was surprising, confusing, interesting about research and findings. What further
questions do we have? How best to go about answering them? (If class time allows, ask students
to design a follow-up assignment, activity. [Responsibility SLO])
Effective Citizenship SDO/ How Can One Person Make a Difference?
On pages 14 and 134, Nemat describes walking out of her class after challenging her teacher to
discuss calculus and not political “propaganda.” When the other students follow her, the incident
is labeled a “strike” and causes Marina to be identified as “antirevolutionary.” When interrogated
Marina insists that she is not political, and throughout her story remains committed to exploring
the personal effects, as opposed to political causes, of the Iranian revolution.
Stage a classroom debate or panel discussion that addresses the questions:
Is Marina’s walk-out a “political” act? Is her memoir a “political” book? What is the difference
between Marina and her friend Shahrzad (a member in the communist group Fadayian-e-Khalgh,
discussed on page 16)?
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First Year Common Book Reading Guide and Lesson Plan
Contextual Resources for Prisoner of Tehran
Center for Victims of Torture (a local organization dedicated to helping survivors of torture heal and
build healthy lives and communities, provides direct services to survivors, also trains community
members, clinicians, volunteers and educators) http://www.cvt.org/
Women’s Prison Book Project (a local organization that provides reading materials to women prisoners
and that is dedicated to educating the public about the condition of prisoners) http://www.wpbp.org/
Meet Marina
http://www.simonandschuster.com/multimedia?video=27801013001
http://www.quillandquire.com/authors/profile.cfm?article_id=7777
Scott Simon’s NPR interview with Marina Nemat:
In this interview Nemat discusses reaching the point (20 years after her imprisonment) of being
able to tell her story, the central role of memory and stories in her survival, the combination of
good and evil in humans, her ability to see the humanity of her torturer, and the Stockholm
syndrome.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9984934
Islamic Revolution
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7856172.stm
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4326522?seq=5
Iranian History
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/country_profiles/806268.stm
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/middle_east/iran/timeline.html
http://www.iranchamber.com/index.php
Political Prisoners/Evin Prison
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5077180.stm
NPR Fresh Air interview with Marjane Satrapi (author of Persepolis) –
Persepolis is a memoir in the form of a graphic novel about growing up in Iran during the Islamic
Revolution. Satrapi’s voice and experience provide a rich companion/comparison with Nemat’s.
In this interview she talks about fear, speaking out, rebelling as a teenager, the value of
education, pop culture, leaving her home country, and human beings’ relationship to repression
and what is forbidden. She specifically mentions the directors of schools giving lists of student
names to the Guardians of the Revolution, and the potential for imprisonment and execution.
This is one of the reasons that Satrapi’s parents send her to Austria when she is 14.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1283520
Maps: http://www.maplandia.com/iran/tehran/tehran/
Dave Arendale: downloads of author reading book. . . .
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