Zarah Ghahramani was born in Tehran in 1981.  Finding the dictates of the regime to be insufferable, particularly the restrictions on girls and women, she became increasingly involved in student protests for reform as she graduated from high school and entered university. Early in 2001, she was arrested for inciting “crimes against the people of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” for which she was imprisoned and tortured in the infamous Evin prison.

After being forced to publicly “confess” to having worked for foreign powers and having sexual relationships with the male leaders of the student protest movement, she was released a month later, shattered and traumatized.  In 2003, with the encouragement of Robert Hillman, Zarah left Iran for Australia.  With his help, she has put together her account of her torture and imprisonment in MY LIFE AS A TRAITOR (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2007).

U.S. Rights: Anderson Literary Management.
Primary Agent: The Mary Cunnane Agency.