Zarah Ghahramani ( fa, زاراە قهرمانی) is an

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

ian-born

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...

author living in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

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 Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the Capital city, capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is th ...

in 1981, as the daughter of a

father who was a military officer under the Shah of Iran, and a mother who raised Ghahramani in the

Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheistic on ...

faith. Because Ghahramani's family strongly disagreed with the country's conservative rulers, 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.

Arrest and imprisonment

When Ghahramani was a 20-year-old college student at the

University of Tehran The University of Tehran (Tehran University or UT, fa, دانشگاه تهران) is the most prominent university located in Tehran, Iran. Based on its historical, socio-cultural, and political pedigree, as well as its research and teaching pro ...

, 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. Charged with "inciting crimes against the people of the Islamic Republic of Iran," 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, but the writer Robert Hillman helped her to escape the country. 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 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...

. and was shortlisted for the 2008 Prime Minister's Literary Awards. Ghahramani continues to write, most recently publishing an essay in the anthology ''How They See Us'', edited by James Atlas.Book review: 'How They See Us,' edited by James Atlas
by Jim Landers, The Dallas Morning News, January 3, 2010.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ghahramani, Zarah Iranian writers Iranian prisoners and detainees Australian people of Iranian descent Iranian women writers Prisoners and detainees of Iran Living people 1981 births