{"product_id":"9781558618169","title":"Kissing the Sword: A Prison Memoir","description":"\u003cp\u003eShahrnush Parsipur was an important writer and television producer in her native Iran until 1979 when the Islamic Republic began imprisoning its citizens. \u003ci\u003eKissing the Sword\u003c\/i\u003e captures the surreal experience of serving time without being charged with a crime, and witnessing the systematic destruction of any and all opposition to fundamentalist power. It is a memoir filled with both horror and humor: nights blasted by the sounds of machine gun fire as hundreds of prisoners are summarily executed, and days spent debating prison officials on whether the Quran demands that women be covered. Parsipur, one of the great novelists of modern Iran, known for magic realism, tells a story here that is all too real. She mines her own painful memories to create an urgent call for one of the most basic human rights: freedom of expression.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBorn in Iran in 1946, Shahrnush Parsipur began her career as a fiction writer and producer at Iranian National Television and Radio. She was imprisoned for nearly five years by the Islamist government without being formally charged. Shortly after her release, she published \u003ci\u003eWomen Without Men\u003c\/i\u003e and was arrested and jailed again, this time for her frank and defiant portrayal of women's sexuality. While still banned in Iran, the novel became an underground bestseller there, and has been translated into many languages around the world. She is also the author of \u003ci\u003eTouba and the Meaning of Night\u003c\/i\u003e , among many other books, and now lives in exile in Northern California.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Feminist Press at CUNY, The","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47049655255280,"sku":"9781558618169","price":15.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781558618169_p0.jpg?v=1763757286","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781558618169","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}