What I Was Silent About. Memoirs of a Prodigal Daughter

Colorful, filled with memorable details, the memoirs of Azar Nafisi, the daughter of the mayor of Tehran, paint a dramatic story of one family against the backdrop of political turmoil in Iran. Nafisi's father, a brilliant politician, ends up in prison, and some time after his release leaves the family. Nafisi's mother, with whom she has a very difficult relationship, is elected to the country's parliament. But due to revolutionary events, she is forced to resign from her position and, like all Iranian women, put on the hijab. While the country is torn apart by political struggle, the heroine matures. She studies, reads Ferdowsi and Nabokov with delight, falls in love, gets married, divorces, enters new relationships, teaches at the university, leads an underground literary circle, and finally emigrates. Her daily life is an incredible tangle of joy, pain, fear, disappointments, and hopes. The main question that Nafisi asks is: what is the price of freedom in a country where freedom is becoming less and less every day?