This prizewinning Iranian-French author tells a gritty and arresting tale of a woman held in a military prison in an unnamed theological republic who is brutally tortured but refuses to give up the man she loves. She is spared a dehumanizing end only when a high-ranking colonel stops the assault with a snap of his fingers — an act he makes for selfish reasons we’ll come to understand.
Their paths cross later in the free world and the pair begin a perplexing relationship. They share flashbacks, told in their two alternating voices, which Fariba Hachtroudi writes in a frenetic and exhausting style. We are led through a gantlet of politics, ambition, romance and the drama of trying to find beauty in such a flawed world.
The story leaves us chilled by the tyrannical culture that created this macabre bond. But at the end, it’s just as much a tale of the capacity to love.
