Letters to My Torturer

"With moving stories about fellow prisoners, biting commentary on the religious dictates imposed by his jailers, and meditations on the soul-destroying effect of false confessions and the special cruelty of his ideological, authoritarian interrogators, Asadi’s simple prose attracts even as the facts he reports repel...A horrifying glimpse of the decades-long nightmare still afflicting the people of Iran."

"Iranian journalist Asadi offers a searing and unforgettable account of the six years he spent in prison after being arrested in 1981 in the aftermath of the Islamic revolution. Twenty years later, now living in Paris, Asadi records his recollections of torture and imprisonment in the form of 27 letters to his interrogator, whom he calls Brother Hamid. Required at all times to wear a blindfold in Brother Hamid’s presence, Asadi developed a relationship with and a perverse dependence upon his torturer, which he describes in graphic detail, along with the endless parade of humiliations he was required to endure while being falsely accused of being both a British and a Soviet spy. Asadi is a gifted storyteller; even if the text, which jumps about chronologically, can be momentarily confusing, his ability to convey the toll of torture and imprisonment is undiminished. And the choice of the epistolary narrative device is a felicitous one: it’s as if the reader has found these letters in a shoebox or a locked drawer, making for harrowing and unique reading." (June)

"A searing and unforgettable account. . . Asadi is a gifted storyteller."

"Beautifully crafted, lyrical, and sad... An important firsthand account".

"[B]eautifully crafted, lyrical, and sad... An important firsthand account."

"A searing and unforgettable account. . . Asadi is a gifted storyteller."

"With moving stories about fellow prisoners, biting commentary on the religious dictates imposed by his jailers, and meditations on the soul-destroying effect of false confessions and the special cruelty of his ideological, authoritarian interrogators, Asadi’s simple prose attracts even as the facts he reports repel...A horrifying glimpse of the decades-long nightmare still afflicting the people of Iran."

"The book would be remarkable on any terms, but it is made especially memorable by the chilling irony and heartbreaking naïveté that characterize Mr. Asadi’s tale... Mr. Asadi's dispassionate description of his experiences makes the book a permanent addition to the harrowing genre of the torture memoir. A powerful testament to what transpires in the prisons of Iran."

"The book would be remarkable on any terms, but it is made especially memorable by the chilling irony and heartbreaking naïveté that characterize Mr. Asadi’s tale... Mr. Asadi's dispassionate description of his experiences makes the book a permanent addition to the harrowing genre of the torture memoir. A powerful testament to what transpires in the prisons of Iran."

"A scathing indictment of torture and a testament to survival against all odds. It is the revenge of truth and a past revealed but not yet healed."

"A terrifying and deeply moving account of a man and a country still brutalised by the politics of fear."

"This remarkable, humane story of abuse and survival across Iranian regimes - told by Ayatollah Khameinei's former cellmate - deserves a global audience, to understand the meaning of cruelty and the reality of modern, tragic, brutal Iran."

"A reminder of the unspeakable brutality that keeps the Iranian regime in power. Asadi's shocking evidence will be a key element in the indictment of the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran in court."

"A terrifying and deeply moving account of a man and a country still brutalised by the politics of fear."

"This remarkable, humane story of abuse and survival across Iranian regimes - told by Ayatollah Khameinei's former cellmate - deserves a global audience, to understand the meaning of cruelty and the reality of modern, tragic, brutal Iran."

"A reminder of the unspeakable brutality that keeps the Iranian regime in power. Asadi's shocking evidence will be a key element in the indictment of the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran in court."

"A scathing indictment of torture and a testament to survival against all odds. It is the revenge of truth and a past revealed but not yet healed."