''My Life as a Traitor'' is a

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biography and memoir, written by

Zarah Ghahramani Zarah Ghahramani ( fa, زاراە قهرمانی) is an Iranian-born Kurds, Kurdish 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 Robert Hillman. The book documents the life of Ghahramani, including her early childhood. In 2001, Ghahramani was arrested for citing crimes against the Islamic Republic of Iran and sent to serve a sentence in Evin Prison; this is one of the main focuses throughout the book, as well as the prison conditions and analysing the modern-world Middle East. The book was first published on December 26, 2006 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book won the award for ''Australian Small Publisher of the Year'' for

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Plot

The biography focuses on analysing the life of the author, Zarah Ghahramani and her imprisonment in the infamous Evin Prison. After taking part in student demonstrations at Tehran University, Ghahramani was taken, by police, from the streets of Tehran and put into this prison, where she was tortured and beaten. When in prison, she was subject to not only beatings, but psychological torture, only retaining her sanity via scratching messages to fellow prisoners. She is kept in the prison for almost one month, and is released after being driven to a distant desert outside of Tehran, where, at the time, she was unsure of her fate and whether or not she would be executed or released.

Reception

Lisa Schwarzbaum of '' Entertainment Weekly'' commented that "she hahramanirecounts her beatings with dignified anger in this vivid, sometimes horrifying memoir, ''My Life as a Traitor'' mixing scenes from prison with sensual memories of her life before what her father called the regime of the primitives."

Firoozeh Dumas Firoozeh Dumas ( fa, فیروزه دوما) (born June 26, 1965, in Abadan, Iran) is an Iranian-American writer who writes in English. She is the author of the memoirs ''Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing up Iranian in America'' (2003) and ' ...

comments that the book is "a compelling story...a must read for anyone interested in understanding the complex nation that is Iran." The ''

Sunday Telegraph ''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in February 1961 and published by the Telegraph Media Group, a division of Press Holdings. It is the sister paper of ''The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', kn ...

'' wrote that the book is "Beautifully written, it's horrifying, enlightening and, ultimately, uplifting." The book was shortlisted for the 2008 Prime Minister's Literary Awards.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:My Life As A Traitor 2007 non-fiction books Memoirs of imprisonment Farrar, Straus and Giroux books