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UNTIL WE ARE FREE

Name: UNTIL WE ARE FREE
Author: Shirin Ebadi
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9887-0

MY FIGHT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN IRAN

by Shirin Ebadi ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 8, 2016

The captivating and candid story of a woman who took on the Iranian government and survived, despite every attempt to make...

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A leading activist speaks out about inequality and injustices in Iran.

Stripped of her judgeship and demoted to clerk by the Iranian government in 1980, Ebadi (The Golden Cage: Three Brothers, Three Choices, One Destiny, 2011, etc.) began taking on pro bono cases in the 1990s, defending the rights of children and women in Iran. For this work, she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 (the first Muslim woman to do so), but she also came under far more serious scrutiny by the extremist rulers in Iran. With honesty and zeal, the author details how the Iranian government has used all manner of tactics to stop her from defending her clients. She was thrown into jail, her phones were bugged, and she was shadowed and watched by government officials; despite their efforts, she continued to defend those who came to her in need. After years of horrifying harassment, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government stepped up its efforts and detained Ebadi's daughter. They also increased their persecution of Ebadi's co-workers and other lawyers who also sought to rectify the inequalities so readily evident under the extremist leaders. When none of these tactics forced the author to stop speaking out about the injustices in Iran, the leaders went one step further and set her husband up in a sting operation, which almost caused her to back down. However, she knew if she caved to their demands, then they would have won, which was a situation that she could not tolerate. Ebadi's courage and strength of character are evident throughout this engrossing text, which illuminates the power the few have had over the many, particularly the women and children of Iran.

The captivating and candid story of a woman who took on the Iranian government and survived, despite every attempt to make her fail.

Pub Date: March 8, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-8129-9887-0

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015

Categories:

- BOOK REVIEW
IRAN AWAKENING
by Shirin Ebadi with Azadeh Moaveni

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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NIGHT

by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...

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Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.

He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.