My Prison, My Home - Hardcover

Esfandiari Haleh

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0007286546 ISBN 13: 9780007286546

Publisher: Harper Press, 2010

Synopsis

On December 31, 2006, sixty-seven-year-old scholar and grandmother Haleh Esfandiari was on her way home to the United States from Iran when she became the victim of a far-fetched conspiracy theory. On the suspicion that she was part of an American plot to bring “regime change” to Iran, the Intelligence Ministry detained, interrogated, and eventually arrested her. For the next 105 days, she lived in solitary confinement in the notorious Evin Prison. Weaving together memories of her childhood in Iran, her story of capture and release, and her extensive knowledge of her homeland, My Prison, My Home is at once a mesmerizing story of survival and a clear-eyed portrait of Iran today and how it came to be.

About this title

From the Back Cover

At the Ministry of Intelligence in Tehran, a man in a checkered shirt sits down in an easy chair. He removes several documents from his pocket and hands one to Haleh Esfandiari, a sixty-seven-year-old Iranian American grandmother he has interrogated and detained for what seems to be an endless number of weeks. “This is your arrest warrant and we are taking you to Evin Prison," he says.

This stunning arrest was the culmination of a chain of events set into motion in the early-morning hours of December 31, 2006—a day that began like any other but presaged the end of Esfandiari's regular visits to her elderly mother in Iran, and her return to the United States. That morning, the driver arrived on time. Her mother held the Quran over her head for blessing and luck. From the car, Haleh waved good-bye. She checked for her passport and plane ticket. But as the taxi neared the airport, a sedan forced them to pull over. Three men, armed with knives, threatened her and her driver while going through her pockets and stealing her belongings—including her travel documents. She was left unharmed but would not fly home to the States that day. “An ordinary robbery," Esfandiari insisted to friends and family. She took steps to secure a new passport and book a new flight. But it would not be until eight months later that she would leave Iran.

Esfandiari became the victim of the far-fetched belief on the part of Iran's Intelligence Ministry that she, a scholar with the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, D.C., was part of an American conspiracy for “regime change" in Iran. In haunting prose and vivid detail, Esfandiari recounts how the Intelligence Ministry subsequently ordered a search of her mother's apartment; put her through hours, then weeks, of interrogation; tapped her phone calls, forcing her to speak in code to her husband and mother; and finally detained her at the notorious Evin Prison, where she would spend 105 days in solitary confinement.

Through her ordeal, Esfandiari came face-to-face with the state of affairs between Iran and the United States—and witnessed firsthand how fear and paranoia could create a government that would take her captive. Weaving her personal story of capture and release with her extensive knowledge of Iran, My Prison, My Home is at once a mesmerizing story of survival and a clear-eyed portrait of Iran today and how it came to be.

About the Author

Haleh Esfandiari is a distinguished Iranian American public intellectual. The founding director of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Middle East Program, she is the former deputy secretary general of the Women’s Organization of Iran and has taught at Princeton University. She has worked in Iran as a journalist and is the author of Reconstructed Lives: Women and Iran’s Islamic Revolution. She lives in Maryland with her husband, Shaul Bakhash, a professor at George Mason University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0007286546
• ISBN 13: 9780007286546
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 230