THE STONING OF SORAYA M.

An indelible retelling—implacable, elegiac, simmering with moral outrage—of the stoning to death of an Iranian woman falsely accused of adultery. In the fall of 1986, Sahebjam—an Iranian journalist who'd been kidnapped and beaten by pro-Khomeini terrorists in Paris- -sneaked into Iran to investigate conditions. In the isolated village of Kupayeh, an old woman beckoned him aside and told him that, two weeks before, her niece, Soraya M., had been executed by stoning. Here, after Sahebjam sets forth these facts, he tells Soraya's story, based on his interviews with the aunt, the village's mayor, and others: Though a faithful wife and devoted mother, Soraya, 35, was a lonely woman who kept to herself, in part because of her bad marriage to one Ghorban-Ali, a low-life who, aligning himself with Khomeini, had risen to power in the village even as he abused his wife, visited prostitutes, and carried on with a younger woman. Meanwhile, one Hassan Lajevardi, pederast and felon, had murdered a magistrate in a nearby city and fled to Kupayeh, where he took control of the town by posing as a mullah. But despite his clerical garb, Lajevardi made a pass at Soraya, which she rejected. Soon, Ghorban-Ali—who wished his wife gone— and the incensed Lajevardi began to plot. Roping other villagers into their scheme, they accused Soraya of adultery; as dictated by custom, the men of the village met and voted a sentence: death by stoning. As the villagers circled around her, Soraya was buried up to her shoulders. Her father threw the first stone; more flew until she died. The village women then laid Soraya at a nearby river, where, the following day, her aunt found the body savaged by dogs. She washed and buried the bones, and ``then, and only then, did she pray and burst into tears.'' An unforgettable indictment, brilliantly written and translated, of man's inhumanity to woman—and of tyranny disguised as righteousness.