A review by margaretefg
Kissing the Sword: A Prison Memoir by Shahrnush Parsipur

4.0

A powerful prison memoir: the author first goes to prison in the early days of the Islamic revolution. She spends four or five years in prison, with short breaks living "free" in revolutionary Iran. She describes herself as a secular democrat, so she doesn't fit in with any of the political prisoners with whom she is housed. I was struck by her compassion for the women with whom she is imprisoned and the women guards. Even though she describes how her experiences made her insane, she is so reasonable in her descriptions of Iranian society and post revolutionary life. This is an amazing book and it made me want to read Parsipur's fiction.