Boktips: Mitt liv som förrädare av Zarah Ghahramani

My Life as a Traitor, by Zarah Ghahramani, is about the then 20-year-old Zarah's time in an Iranian prison. Terrible, it may seem, and it is. But the most interesting thing is to read about the journey there: growing up in a middle-class Iranian family, university studies and teenage life with ordinary girl talk about boys and love and clothes, with the only difference being that the mullahs' religious rules are everywhere like a shadow.

Reading is travelling

From the time Zarah is little, we follow how various small events make her more and more critical of the regime, eventually leading to the point where she is lifted into a car by the police and driven to the infamous Evin prison in Tehran.

Reading is travelling, and just like travelling, you learn new things about the world. For example, during this trip I learnt about Zoroastrianism, a religion with about 2.6 million followers, mainly living in Iran and India. Very interesting!