Camelia: Save Yourself by Telling the Truth
by Camelia Entekhabifard
Seven Stories Press, £9.99
“I LAY down, and they threw a blanket over me. Softly I said, ‘For God’s sake, take me wherever you are going to take me. Just don’t kill me’.” Camelia Entekhabifard, an Iranian journalist, was arrested in Tehran in 1999 and spent three months in prison. Her detention came in the wake of the serial murders of several dissidents and intellectuals and during a prolonged crackdown on free speech. Like many, Entekhabifard put herself at risk; she refused to tone down her investigative reporting and continued to write articles for the reformist newspaper Zan that enraged the regime. At the time of her arrest she was working on a piece about prostitutes in Qom.
This book is not just an account of state repression and a dissident’s spell inside. Amidst the violent turmoil wrought by the 1979 revolution, she recalls a largely happy childhood in Tehran and enjoys success as both a teenage poet and journalist.
Entekhabifard also admits to a romance with her abusive interrogator which secured her an early release from prison; an affair she continued outside until, disgusted with herself, she fled Iran for the United States. She describes the horrors she witnessed in prison and felt that if she did not do something to help herself she would die. Blindfolded and wearing the obligatory chador, she was forced to use the only charms available to ensnare her tormentor: “To send my love letters and to nourish this relationship, I had only my hands, and it was with these hands that I spoke to him.”
The honesty with which she sets down the measures she took to save herself is a powerful reminder of the indomitable power of the human spirit. It is her strength in the face of adversity that shines through and makes this memoir of modern Iran so extraordinary.
Lucy Popescu
