First Year Common Book Reading Guide and Lesson Plan

Prisoner of Tehran: A memoir

By Marina NematThis 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(SLO)

Book: Marina makes choices that have major consequences for herself 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?

Students: Consider own choices and consequences of choices – what forms of agency are open to them and what restraints limits their agency?

Effective Citizenship /Integrated Learning/ Lifelong Learning (SDO)

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.

Effective Communication(SDO)

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?

StrengthsQuest 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 SYNOPSESChapter 1Marina 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 tortureChapter 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 squadMarina 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 BooksMarina 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 7Marina 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 ArashMarina 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 EvinMarina 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 SYNOPSESChapter 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 hopeMarina’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 StrikeMarina 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 crack-down 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 executedTaraneh 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 yesAli 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 mourningMarina 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 ConversionMarina 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

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 wifeWhen 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 17Marina 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 18After 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.

EpilogueThe 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 prompts1. 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 quotetwo-sided reading journal, mapping the text

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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., CM; MZ; ZC). Repeat (MC; ZM; CZ). 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 TehranCenter 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=27801013001http://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.stmhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/4326522?seq=5

Iranian History http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/country_profiles/806268.stmhttp://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/middle_east/iran/timeline.html

http://www.iranchamber.com/index.php

Political Prisoners/Evin Prisonhttp://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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