Wednesday, May 30, 2012

THE TALE OF TWO NAZANINS: A Teenager on Death Row in Iran and the Canadian Who Vowed to Save Her (NAZANIN AFSHIN-JAM & Susan McClelland)




Story Description: 

Harper Collins Publishers Ltd|May 14, 2012| Hardcover|ISBN: 978-1-55468-972-9 

In 2006, Vancouver’s Nazanin Afshin-Jam was on top of the world.  A year earlier, she had won runner-up at Miss World, the first time an Iranian-born woman had ever finished so high in the competition.  She had signed her first record deal and was a sought-after fashion model.  But one rainy afternoon, Nazanin received an email that would change her life.  Please help!  Please save her! 

Thousands of miles away in Tehran, the subject of that email: a poverty stricken seventeen-year-old Kurdish-Iranian named Nazanin Fatehi was preparing for her execution, punishment for an act that was, in her mind, not a crime: she had stabbed a man who had tried to rape her.  Afshin-Jam quickly came to Fatehi’s defence, striding into the world of the United Nations and international diplomacy, attempting to force Iran to reopen Fatehi’s case and stay the execution. 

The Tale of Two Nazanins weaves the inspiring real-life stories of two women, their sisterly bond and their fight for justice that, for the first time since the 1979 revolution, brought the Iranian regime to its knees, if only for a brief moment. 

My Review: 

It is not very often that I don’t actually write a review of my own but this is one of those times.  This was the most startlingly, eye-opening, heart-crushing piece of non-fiction I’ve read in a while.  I think the description above tells, in fairly good detail, what this story is about.  I recommend that everyone read it you’ll be appalled at the number of executions of “teenagers” and the brutality that they suffer at the hands of their captors.  It’s unimaginable!



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