Iran Awakening
From Prison to Peace Prize: One Woman's Struggle at the Crossroads of History
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Shirin Ebadi—Nobel Peace Prize–winning lawyer, former judge, and human rights advocate—has spent her life confronting systems that silence women and suppress dissent. In this powerful memoir, she traces her journey from a progressive childhood in pre-revolutionary Iran to the front lines of legal battles against an increasingly authoritarian state.
As one of Iran’s first female judges, Ebadi was stripped of her position after the 1979 Revolution, when religious authorities barred women from serving on the bench. Refusing to retreat, she rebuilt her career as a human rights lawyer, defending women, children, and political prisoners in cases few others would touch—including her representation of the family of Canadian photojournalist Zara Kazemi, who died in Iranian custody.
Writing with clarity and moral force, Ebadi recounts the personal cost of dissent: sustained threats and intimidation, periods of detention and interrogation, eventual exile, and the constant challenge of raising a family under political pressure. Her story offers an essential perspective on the intersections of faith, feminism, and the rule of law—and on the enduring struggle for justice in Iran and beyond.
At a moment when women’s rights and democratic freedoms are again under siege worldwide, Ebadi’s memoir reads not as distant history, but as warning—and as a call to conscience.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Human rights activist and winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, Ebadi courageously recounts her life in Iran in this memoir, publishable here only after she brought the U.S. government to court to challenge the Treasury Department's sanctions policy. Collaborating with Moaveni (Lipstick Jihad), Ebadi guides readers through the turbulent recent history of her country. A young judge and pro-revolution activist under the repressive government of the shah, Ebadi says of the Iranian revolution, "We felt as if we had reclaimed a dignity that, until recently, many of us had not even realized we had lost." Her hopes were quickly dashed as it became clear that the Islamic Republic was more concerned with her lack of a headscarf than with her legal reasoning abilities, and she uses the bulk of her book to explain her decision to remain in Iran and brave the challenges faced by independent-minded citizens of a theocracy. Ebadi provides a revealing glimpse into a deeply insular society. She is at her best when discussing the hapless reform movement led by former president Khatami: for instance, though over a dozen moderate women were elected to the national assembly in 2000, they lacked the power to have the women's conference room furnished with chairs.
