From Publishers Weekly
This resonant book portrays the ugliness of fundamentalist Islamic mob justice in Khomeini-era Iran. Sahebjam, an Iranian journalist based in France who has written critically of the regime, returned to his homeland under cover in 1986. While visiting a small town he calls Kupayeh, he learned how an innocent 35-year-old woman had been stoned to death for supposed infidelity. His thorough reporting, based on a further visit to the village, reconstructs Soraya's life and killing with much dialogue and interior monologue. Soraya gave birth to nine children in 14 years and her husband Ghorban-Ali also turned to prostitutes. He became involved in shady business deals and began to associate with Sheik Hassan, a criminal who was appointed Ayatollah Khomeini's local representative. When Ghorban-Ali, having fallen in love with another woman, accused his wife of infidelity, villagers lied to aid him and Soraya was left with no support in the town. Her two eldest sons sat on the male tribunal that declared her guilty, and she was stoned by a mob that included her father. This book refuses to let such horror go unremembered.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This profoundly disturbing but very important little book tells the true story, in graphic detail, of the events leading to the stoning to death of Soraya Manutchehri in a small village in southwestern Iran in August 1986. Soraya was innocent; she was condemned to death on fictitious charges of adultery so that her husband could marry another woman (he was too poor to support two wives.) The author, an Iranian journalist raised in France, first heard of Soraya's fate in fall 1986 while in Iran on assignment for a French publication. In Soraya's village, he met her aunt Zahra, who began to recount Soraya's terrible ordeal. He later returned and met the villagers primarily involved in determining Soraya's "justice," including her husband, her father, and the village mayor. Though it would be easy to condemn Islam after reading this book, educated Muslims would decry this stoning as much as Westerners (officially, such an action is prohibited in Islam). Highly recommended for all libraries.
- Ruth K. Baacke, Whatcom Cty . Lib. Sys., Bellingham, Wash.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
by Marina Nemat
