Prisoner: My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison—Solitary Confinement, a Sham Trial, High-Stakes Diplomacy, and the Extraordinary Efforts It Took to Get Me Out
Prisoner is more than just a memoir that reads like a thriller. It’s also an intimate family history, an anguished love letter to an ancient and broken homeland, and a spirited defense of journalism and truth at a time when both are under attack almost everywhere ... Few serious books about the Middle East end on a moment of optimism, and Prisoner is a serious book. As both American and Iranian, Rezaian truly believed he could live in and between his two home countries. But he can’t. Not now.
Prisoner, Rezaian’s account of his time behind bars and his release, is full of stories...some of them funny, some of them outrageous ... Not all of Rezaian’s book is...fast-reading ...There is a slow-going chapter about the many relatives in his large Iranian American family, and in general, the narrative about the incremental progress of his court case inches along. It is Rezaian’s descriptions of the way the Iranian regime operates at the working level—its twisted logic and paranoia—that make the book so worthwhile.
[Rezaian's] account of how he learns that he has become an international household name is characteristically wry ... at the airport there is one final drama — told in riveting prose — when Iranian authorities refuse to allow Rezaian's wife and mother-in-law to leave with him ... Rezaian is unsparingly intimate throughout, writing of his fears, his insecurities, of the conjugal visits with his wife allowed by the Revolutionary Guard ... Rezaian comes off as a guy one would like to have as a friend, and it seems the Iranians think so, too.
Rezaian’s candid and revelatory memoir of his incarceration is interlaced with touching tributes to his Iranian-born father, his journalistic mentor, Christopher Hitchens, and his beloved wife, Yeganeh. At a time when journalists find themselves increasingly under fire, both abroad and at home, Rezaian’s dedication to his craft is an inspiring homage to the fearlessness of these intrepid purveyors of truth.
If you’re the kind of reader who admires humility and are sensitive to its absence in an author, this book is not for you ... But no one can complain about the volume of information, the depth of insight, the compelling anger of this story.
Absurdities come thick and fast in this powerful memoir ... Prisoner touches on...complex politics, but it is above all a personal story, told with admirable frankness, and a humor that sometimes belies the darkness of the experience. Rezaian’s time as, effectively, a hostage clearly changed him profoundly, but he doesn’t dwell on the mental anguish that must have filled his days ... The abiding sense is of an imaginative reporter, a joker, a lover of life and a devoted husband broken on the wheel of a vindictive system.
...a powerful memoir that underscores the complicated relationship between the U.S. and Iran ... Rezaian’s conversational prose makes this a fast and intense narrative.
