MY PRISON, MY HOME
One Woman’s Story of Captivity in Iran
By Haleh Esfandiari
Ecco. 230 pp. $25.99
As you read Haleh Esfandiari’s memoir of imprisonment in Iran, it’s easy to lose track of time, both because her compelling tale draws you in and because similar situations are still playing out in her home country. Esfandiari’s one-week visit with her 93-year-old mother in Tehran, in December 2006, turned into an eight-month-long international incident when she was accused of attempting to overthrow the regime by organizing lectures and conferences as the Middle East director at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.
Held in solitary confinement at Evin Prison, Esfandiari battled the devils of imprisonment physically and emotionally. She took on a routine of exercising six hours a day to stay mentally fit for grueling interrogation sessions. She also tried not to think much about her loved ones outside the prison walls, in order to stave off depression and feelings of “Sisyphean futility” as freedom often seemed simultaneously close and elusive.
Esfandiari’s travails have been well documented: The Washington Post and other newspapers around the world closely covered her case and editorialized for her release. But “My Prison, My Home” goes well beyond the headlines by deftly weaving personal narrative with a political history of modern Iran.
The charges against Esfandiari were eventually dropped, and she returned to Washington, but it’s clear she will never be the same. “The scars of prison never really heal,” she writes. Yet despite her ordeal, she still hopes for more freedom in her homeland and says she has “lost none of my devotion to Iran.”
