Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope.

• Author: Keith, Amy L.
• Position: Book review

IRAN AWAKENING: A MEMOIR OF REVOLUTION AND HOPE Shirin Ebadi with Azadeh Moaveni (New York: Random House, 2006), 232 pages.

"The next person to be killed is Shirin Ebadi." From this arresting line in the prologue to the epilogue's account of an Iranian woman defending the First Amendment rights of Americans, Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope provides a captivating account of the making of modern Iran and the political world of Iranian women. Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi and co-author Azadeh Moaveni do an excellent job of weaving Ebadi's personal experiences with historical background and context, making the book engaging as well as accessible to readers with little or no prior knowledge of Iranian history, politics or culture.

Ebadi is a proud Iranian who has lived in Iran throughout three tumultuous decades of war and political strife, from the mid-1970s to the present day Her extraordinary story is that of a professional, independent woman struggling with unexpected repression at the hands of her government; a lawyer fighting for civil and human rights in a system that terrorizes its...