by Aimee Molloy
First published 2014
Maziar Bahari travels from London to Tehran in June 2009, planning a brief assignment covering Iran's presidential election. He promises his pregnant fiancée Paola he will return within days. Instead, Iranian authorities arrest him and lock him in Evin Prison for three months. His interrogator becomes known to him only through scent. Maziar calls this man Rosewater. Alone in his cell, Maziar remembers his family's long history with political persecution. The shah imprisoned his father in the 1950s. Ayatollah Khomeini jailed his sister in the 1980s. Their voices speak to him across the decades, giving him strength during torture sessions. He thinks of Paola waiting in London and his resilient eighty-four-year-old mother campaigning for his freedom. During the worst interrogations, he repeats the names of loved ones like a prayer, hoping to survive until his child's birth. This memoir reveals seventy years of Iranian regime changes while following one family's courage against government oppression.
Genres: historical-fiction, memoir, biography-memoir, political-thriller
Vibes: emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, resilience, survival
Setting: Evin Prison, Iran, London, Tehran
Period: 1950s, 1980s, 2009
399 pages · Paperback · Random House Publishing Group
Content warnings: torture, violence