4.0
Iran Awakening
ByPublisher Description
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • The first Muslim woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize provides an eyewitness account of her stand at the crossroads of history in this moving and unforgettable memoir.
“Riveting . . . [Iran Awakening] sometimes reads like a police thriller, its drama heightened by [Shirin] Ebadi’s determination to keep up the quotidian aspects of her family life.”—The Washington Post Book World (Best Books of the Year)
“A testament to how a single, inspired voice can rise above the cacophony . . . the book should be required reading.”—The Nation
In Iran Awakening, Dr. Shirin Ebadi recounts her public career and reveals her private self: her faith, her experiences, and her desire to lead a traditional life even while serving as a rebellious voice in a land where such voices are muted or brutally silenced.
Ebadi describes her girlhood in Tehran, her education, and her early professional success as Iran’s most accomplished female jurist—until hardline clerics demoted her after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. She eventually fought her way back as a human rights lawyer, defending women and children in politically charged cases that most lawyers were afraid to represent.
In reading Ebadi’s story, we come to see a devoted daughter, wife, and mother. Ebadi is an everywoman, albeit one who has braved imprisonment, harassment, and assassination attempts, all for the dream of a better Iran for her daughters and for generations to come. For her bravery and selflessness, she has been embraced as a national hero and as a key player in helping to forge Iran’s destiny, whatever it may be.
“Riveting . . . [Iran Awakening] sometimes reads like a police thriller, its drama heightened by [Shirin] Ebadi’s determination to keep up the quotidian aspects of her family life.”—The Washington Post Book World (Best Books of the Year)
“A testament to how a single, inspired voice can rise above the cacophony . . . the book should be required reading.”—The Nation
In Iran Awakening, Dr. Shirin Ebadi recounts her public career and reveals her private self: her faith, her experiences, and her desire to lead a traditional life even while serving as a rebellious voice in a land where such voices are muted or brutally silenced.
Ebadi describes her girlhood in Tehran, her education, and her early professional success as Iran’s most accomplished female jurist—until hardline clerics demoted her after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. She eventually fought her way back as a human rights lawyer, defending women and children in politically charged cases that most lawyers were afraid to represent.
In reading Ebadi’s story, we come to see a devoted daughter, wife, and mother. Ebadi is an everywoman, albeit one who has braved imprisonment, harassment, and assassination attempts, all for the dream of a better Iran for her daughters and for generations to come. For her bravery and selflessness, she has been embraced as a national hero and as a key player in helping to forge Iran’s destiny, whatever it may be.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesIran Awakening Reviews
4.0
“I have such an admiration for Ebadi after reading this. The risks she took, her unwavering moral courage and determination, her continual struggle for the true heart of the Iranian people was deeply inspiring. She is truly a lionhearted woman of Iran.”
“Shirin Ebadi does such a wonderful job of informing the reader of the struggles in Iran concerning government, religion, women's rights, and East v.s.
West mentality. It is Ebadi's direct and personal experience as a woman in Iran balancing her family and career throughout oppressive regimes and revolutions. This firsthand account, told by Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, is an inspirational and thought provoking argument about the place of women in Iranian society. At times, I did not fully agree with certain arguments made by Ebadi, nonetheless, all of her arguments were new and interesting perspectives. This book is perfect for anyone looking to broaden their perspective and learn about the Iranian people.”
“Wow, just wow. Shirin Ebadi, what a woman you are!
In the context of recent protests against the Islamic regime, I became aware of how limited my understanding of Iran’s history had been, particularly in relation to the 1979 Revolution and its aftermath. Iran Awakening provides a powerful and necessary corrective to this gap in knowledge.
Writing as a human rights lawyer who lived and worked in Iran during this period, Ebadi offers a firsthand account of how women’s rights were systematically eroded following the Revolution. She demonstrates how legal, religious and political systems were restructured in ways that disproportionately constrained women’s autonomy, mobility and access to justice for all. One of the book’s greatest strengths is its refusal to romanticise resistance. Ebadi presents the pursuit of justice as slow, dangerous and emotionally exhausting, particularly for women operating within a system designed to silence them. Her commitment to dignity, ethical integrity and legal advocacy, despite sustained personal risk, underscores the profound cost of speaking out.
This memoir is both illuminating and confronting. It is essential reading for those seeking to understand Iran beyond surface-level narratives, and for anyone interested in women’s rights, human rights law and the lived realities of structural oppression in Iran and beyond.”
CaptivatingChallengingEducationalThought-provokingTimelyAccuratePersonal experienceThoroughWell-researchedCohesiveFlows wellLogical progressionWell-organizedWell-pacedAccessibleClearAbuseChild abuseChild lossDeathDomestic violenceExplicit sexual contentMisogynyMurderReligious intoleranceSexual assaultViolenceWar violence
About Shirin Ebadi
Dr. Shirin Ebadi was one of Iran’s first female judges and served as the first female chief magistrate of one of the country’s highest courts until the 1979 Islamic Revolution stripped her of her judgeship. In the 1990s Ebadi returned to the law as a defender of women’s and children’s rights, founding a human rights center that spearheaded legal reform and public debate around the Islamic Republic’s discriminatory laws. She has defended many of the country’s most prominent prisoners of conscience and spent nearly a month in prison in 1999 for her activities. For many years she was at the center of Iran’s grassroots women’s movement. In 2003 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work. Since the election uprising of June 2009 she has lived in exile.
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