Family History, Iranian History, Imprisonment

The book I just finished is called My Prison, My Home by Haleh Esfandiari. And as the title of this post suggests it held a lot for me.

Haleh is my great aunt, and 4 years ago she was imprisoned in Iran. This book is a concise summary of both Iran's history over the past 100 years but also her story or turmoil and captivity. It was interesting for me to read about her childhood and hear more about her life. I really only get to see her once a year when we go to visit, so reading about her life was interesting. Obviously being 25% Iranian I follow the news and have always taken interest in history in general, but to get her take on the countries history was helpful. The political view was also helpful. She shed light on the relationship between the United States and Iran over the past 30 years and how is has swung in the balance and why. 

Reading about the imprisonment was difficult. To think that anyone could capture a 68 year old woman and keep her in solitary confinement for over 100 days is astonishing to me. The fact that she was regularly interrogated on top of that was heart-breaking. Knowing that she is home safe and that she is doing well makes it that much better, but I know that while it was going on our whole family was constantly up in the air and always worried.