Books about Iran
Abani, Ali. (2007). [compiled and translated]. Living in the Antechamber of Death: Vignettes from Iran’s Prisons. Printed in the US.
Abrahamian, Ervand. (1999). Tortured Confessions: Prisons and Public Recantation in Modern Iran. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.
Afshari, Reza. (2001). Human Rights in Iran: The Abuse of Cultural Relativism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press
Agah, Azadeh, Sousan Mehr and Shadi Parsi. (2007). We Lived to Tell: Political Prison Memoirs of Iranian Women. Toronto: McGilligan Books.
Abani, Ali. (2007). [compiled and translated]. Living in the Antechamber of Death: Vignettes from Iran’s Prisons. Printed in the US.
Azar, Shokoofeh. (2020). The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree. New York: Europa Editions.
Baniyaghoob, Jila. (2013). Women of Evin: Ward 209. Bloomington, Indiana: Xlibris.
Barzanji, Jalal. (2011). The Man in the Blue Pyjamas: A Prison Memoir. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan: Houghton Boston Printers.
Boochani, Behrouz. (2019). No Friend But the Mountains: Writings from Manus Prison. (O. Tofighian, Trans). Sydney: Picador Australia. (See Translator’s Tale: A Window to the Mountains and Behrouz Boochani and the Manus Prison narratives merging translation with philosophical reading.)
Delijani, S. (2013). Children of the Jacaranda Tree: A Novel (First Edition edition.). New York: Atria Books.
Entekhabifard, C., & Murer, G. (2008). Camelia, save yourself by telling the truth: a memoir of Iran. New York: Seven Stories Press.
Gärtner, H., Shahmoradi, M. (eds). (2020). Iran in the International System: Between Great Powers and Great Ideas. Reoutledge.
Ghahramani, Zarah with Robert Hillman. (2007). My Life As a Traitor. Australia: Scribe Publications.
Godrej, Dinyar. (2006). Iran: The tortured. In Adam Jones (Ed.) Men of the Global South. London and New York: Zed Books.
Jahanbegloo, Ramin. (2014). Time will Say Nothing: A Philosopher Survives an Iranian Prison. Regina: University of Regina Press.
Khalili, Laleh., and Schwedler, Jillian. (2010). Policing and Prisons in the Middle East: Formations of Coercion. London: Hurst.
Makaremi, Chowra. (2011). Le Cahier D’Aziz: Au Coeur de la Révolution Iranienne. Montreal, Quebec: Editions Gallimard.
Makaremi, Chowra. (2011). Aziz’s Notebook: At the Heart of the Iranian Revolution. Translated by Renuka George. New Delhi: Yoda Press.
Mohajer, Nasser. (2020). Voices of a Massacre: Untold Stories of Life and Death in Iran, 1988. London: Oneworld Publications.
Mojab, Shahrzad. (2008). Introduction. In A. Agah, S. Parsi and S. Mehr, We Lived to Tell: Political Prison Memoirs of Iranian Women (pp. 7-18). Toronto, Canada: McGilligan Press.
Moshiri, Farnoosh. (2003). The Bathhouse: A Novel. Boston: Beacon Press.
Moshiri, Farnoosh. (1999). At the Wall of the Almighty (1st Printing edition.). New York: Interlink Publishing Group.
Mossallanejed, Ezat. (2005). Torture in the Age of Fear. Hamilton, Ontario: Seraphim Editions.
Mozaffari, N., & Karimi-Hakkak, A. (2005). Strange Times, My Dear: The PEN Anthology of Contemporary Iranian Literature. Arcade Publishing.
Nemat, Marina. (2007). Prisoner of Tehran. Toronto: Penguin Canada and Viking Canada.
This book has led to much controversy among former Iranian political prisoners and political activists living in diaspora. Those with knowledge of Farsi language can access these debates by clicking here.
PROTEST AGAINST THE PUBLICATION OF THE PRISONER OF TEHRAN
Nemat, Marina. (2010). After Tehran: A Life Reclaimed. Toronto, Canada: Penguin Group.
Osborne, Bethany. (2010). The survival and resistance of Iranian women. In S. Mojab (Ed.), Women, war, violence and learning (pp. 231-245). London: Routledge.
Rejali, Darius. (1994). Torture and Modernity; Self, Society and State in Modern Iran. Colorado: Westview Press.
Rejali, Darius. (2009). Torture and Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Sabet, Fariba. (2011). At What Price? Memoir of Fariba Sabet, a former political prisoner from the Islamic Republic of Iran. London: Millennial Mind Publishers.
Satrapi, M. (2003). The Complete Persepolis. New York: Pantheon.
Shahrooz, Kaveh. (2006). With Revolutionary Rage and Rancor: A report and preliminary legal analysis of the 1988 massacre of Iran’s political prisoners. Unpublished Master of Laws Thesis, Harvard Law School.
Talebi, Shahla. (2011). Ghosts of Revolution: Rekindled Memories of Imprisonment in Iran. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
The March 8th Committee (1998). Bloody Facts and Tales of Heroic Resistance: On the Occasion of the 10th Anniversary of the Massacre of the Political Prisoners by the Butchers of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Koln, Germany: Zan, 31 pages.
Book Reviews
Hajjar, Lisa. (2000). “Tortured confessions: Prisons and public recantations in modern Iran by Ervand Abrahamian (Berkley, CA: University of California Press, 1999), (Book Review).” Middle East Journal, 54 (3): 468 -469.
Lynd, Margaret. (1995). “Torture and modernity: Self, society and state in modern Iran by Darius M. Rejali. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1994). (Book review).” Middle East Journal, 49 (1): 145-147.
Mahdi, Ali Akbar. (2000). “Tortured confessions: Prisons and public recantations in Modern Iran by Ervand Abrahamian (book review).” International Journal Middle East Studies, 23 (3): 414 -418.
Mirsepassi, Ali. (1995). “Torture and modernity: Self, society and state in Modern Iran by Darius M. Rejali. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1994). (Book review).” Historian, 57 (3): 587 -588.
Shephard, Michelle. (2005). “The woman without a past: A story of a woman from Iran.” The Toronto Star. January 30: A.04. (Accessed 3/10/2006).
Vahabzadeh, Peyman. (1998). “Torture and modernity: Self, society and state in modern Iran by Darius M. Rejali. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1994). (book review).” Iranian Studies, 31 (1).
Werner, Christopher. (2000). “Tortured confessions: Prisons and public recantations in modern Iran by Ervand Abrahamian (Book Review).” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 27 (2): 239 -240.
Wildman, Sarah. (2008). “Caught in the Ayatollah’s web,” The New York Times, January 6, 2008. Available here.
Oral Memory Projects
Kannout, L. (2019). So I’m not Kept in the Shad
ows – Oral Memory: Syrian Women Survivors of Detention. The Day After Organization. Download Here.
Books – Middle East
Abdo, N. (2014). Captive Revolution: Palestinian Women’s Anti-Colonial Struggle within the Israeli Prison System. Pluto Press.
Altan, Ahmet. (2019). I Will Never See the World Again: The Memoir of an Imprisoned Writer. New York: Other Press.
Altay, V. (2011). we, the disappeared. Ankara, Turkey: Akademi Matbaasi.
Baker, A., & Matar, A. (Eds.). (2011). Threat : Palestinian political prisoners in Israel. London: Pluto Press.
Bechara, Soha. (2003). Resistance: My Life for Lebanon. Brooklyn, NY: Soft Skull Press.
Bozarslan, Hamit. (2004). Violence in the Middle East: From Political Struggle to Self-Sacrifice. Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers.
Dabbagh, Heba. (2007). Just Five Minutes: Nine Years in the Prisons of Syria. Translated by Bayan Khatib. Toronto, Canada.
DuPlessis, Rachel Blau and Ann Snitow, eds. (2008). The Feminist Memoir Project: Voices from New Women’s Liberation. New York: Three Rivers Press.
El Bouih, Fatnah. (2008). Talk of Darkness. Austin, TX: Centre for Middle Eastern Studies.
El-Sa’adawi, Nawal. (1991). Memoirs form the Women’s Prison [translated from the Arabic by Marilyn Booth]. London: The Women’s Press.
Goldberg, Eve and Linda Evans. (2003). The Prison Industrial Complex and the Global Economy. Montreal: Kersplebedeb, 24 pages.
Guzel, A. (2003). Asiye’s Story. London: Saqi Books.
Harlow, Barbara. (1992). Barred: Women, Writing, and Political Detention. Hanover: Wesleyan University Press.
Ipong, A.I. (2012). A Red Rose for Andrea: writings from prison. Philippines: Southern Voices Printing Press.
Jelin, E. (2003). State repression and the labors of memory. Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
Kaplan, C. (1998). Resisting Autobiography: Out-Law Genres and Transnational Feminist Subjects. In J. W. Smith (Ed.), Women, Autobiography, Theory: A Reader (pp. 208-216). Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.
Keren, M. and Holger H. Herwig (Eds.). (2009). War Memory and Popular Culture: Essays on Modes of Remembrance and Commemoration. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc.
Kusha, Hamid. (2002). The Sacred Law of Islam. Hants, England: Ashgate.
Lazreg, Marina. (2009) Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From Algiers to Baghdad. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
McClintock, Scott. (2004). “The Penal Colony: the Inscription of the Subject in Literature and Law and Detainees as Legal Non-Persons at Camp X-Ray.” Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 41, No. 1: 153-167.
Meer, Fatemah. (2001). Prison diary: one hundred and thirteen days, 1976. Roggebaai: South Africa: Kwela Books.
Menjivar, Cecilia. (2011). Enduring Violence: Ladina Women’s Lives in Guatemala. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Millett, Kate. (1994). The Politics of Cruelty: An Essay on the Literature of Political Imprisonment. New York: W. W. Norton.
Mojab, S. and Bethany J. Osborne. (2011). Violence and Learning. In P. Jarvis (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Adult Education (pp. 165-174). London: Routledge.
Morris, Norval and David J. Rothman (Eds.) (1998). The Oxford History of the Prison: The Practice of Punishment in Western Society. New York: Oxford University Press.
Nashif, E. (2008). Palestinian political prisoners identity and community. London; New York (N.Y.): Routledge.
Okubo, M. (1983). Citizen 13660. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.
Pates, Rebecca. (2007). The End of Punishment: Philosophical Considerations on an Institution. New York: Peter Lang Publishing Group.
Peteet, Julie. (1994). “Male Gender and Rituals of Resistance in the Palestinian Intifada: A Cultural Politics of Violence.” American Anthropologist, 21 (1): 31-49.
Rhodes, Lorna. (2001). Toward an Anthology of Prisons. Annual Review of Anthropology, No.30: 65-83.
Rhodes, Lorna. (1998). “Panoptical Intimacies.” Public Culture, 10 (2): 285-311.
Saoudi, Nour-Eddine, et. al. (2005). Femmes-Prison: Parcours Croisés. Rabat: Editions Marsam.
Scheffler, Judith. (1986). Wall Tappings: An Anthology of Writings by Women Political Prisoners. New York: Feminist Press.
Slyomovics, Susan. (2007). The Performance of Human Rights in Morocco. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Slyomavics, Susan. (2011). The Argument from Silence: Morocco’s Truth Commission and Women Political Prisoners. In J. Wu with S. Livescu (Eds.), Human Rights, Suffering, and Aesthetics in Political Prison Literature (pp. 87-106). Toronto, Canada: Lexington Books.
Stroinska, Magda and Vittorina Cecchetto (Eds.) (2003). Exile, language and identity. New York: Peter Lang
Sudbury, Julia. (2005). Global Lockdown: Race, gender and the Prison-Industrial Complex. New York: Routledge.
Wacquant, Loïc. (2006). Deadly Symbiosis: Race and the Rise of Neoliberal Penalty. New York: Polity Press.
Whitlock, G. (2007). Soft Weapons: Autobiography in Transit. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wu, Yenna with Simona Livescu. (2011). Introduction. In J. Wu with S. Livescu (Eds.), Human Rights, Suffering, and Aesthetics in Political Prison Literature (pp. 1-16). Toronto, Canada: Lexington Books.
Zangana, Haifa. (1991). Through the Vast Halls of Memory. Translated from Arabic by Paul Hammond and the author.
Zangana, Haifa. (2009). Dreaming of Baghdad. New York: The Feminist Press.
Books in Other Languages
Strech, Ralf (Hrsg.) (2003) Tondar: Geschichte und Widerstand politischer Gefangener. For more information click here.
PhD/Thesis Research
Ghahary, Nouriman. (2003). Sequelae of Political Torture: Narratives of Trauma and Resilience by Iranian Torture Survivors . Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Seton Hall University.
Osborne, Bethany J. (2014). The Art of Remembering: Iranian Political Prisoners, Resistance and Community. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
Osborne, Bethany. (2009). The Learning of Embattled Bodies: Women Political Prisoners of Iran. Unpublished MA Thesis. OISE/UT.
Rejali, Darius. (1987). Discipline and Torture, or How Iranians Became Moderns. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, McGill University.
Sadeghi-Fassaei, Soheila. (1996). Women and Crime in Iran: The Effect of the Circumstances of Women’s Occupation on Crime. Unpublished Ph. D. Dissertation, University of Manchester.
Sakhi, Shokoufeh. (2014). Ethics and Resistant Subject: Levinas, Foucault, Marx. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. York University, Toronto, Canada.
Sakhi, Shokoufeh. (2002). Total Systems: Capitulations and Resistances. Unpublished MA Thesis. York University, Toronto, Canada.
Shahrooz, Kaveh. (2006). With Revolutionary Rage and Rancor: A report and preliminary legal analysis of the 1988 massacre of Iran’s political prisoners. Unpublished Master of Laws Thesis, Harvard Law School.
Articles
Boochani, Behrouz., Tofighian, Omid. (2018). “The Last Days in Manus Prison.” Meanjin Quarterly. Summer 2018.
Other
Naidoo, Shanthini. (2020). Women in Solitary: Inside the Female Resistance to Apartheid. Cape Town: Tafelberg Publishers Ltd.
Naidoo, Shanthini. (2021). Women Surviving Apartheid’s Prisons. Just World Books.