Veil of Roses

By Laura Fitzgerald

Tami is a young Iranian woman who gets to come the USA for two months. She is unhappy living under the oppressive religious regime running Iran and her hope is that she will find a nice Iranian man to marry while in the USA. She will be staying with her older sister and her sister will introduce her to all the eligible Iranian males in the area, which is Tucson, Arizona.
Tami finds America a little disorienting. She if offered a free sample at Starbucks and she doesn't understand the concept of a free sample, trying to pay the clerk for it. And when the police arrive a short time later, just to get a beverage, Tami is sure they have come to arrest her for stealing the sample. So even though she speaks English, she takes a class in conversational English to improve her understanding.
Her class is small and is composed of other foreigners. These people soon become like a second family, offering advice and helping her cope with American life. Tami is so closed off from living in Iran for almost all her life that she is constantly shocked by the openness and freedom she sees around her. At the same time she realizes that this is exactly what she wants. She is determined that she will find a man to marry before her two months are up.
Problem is that all the prospects are just not measuring up. One guy is already engaged. One guy is a loon. Meanwhile there is a guy who really likes Tami but she won't give him a chance because he is not Iranian. Her family would be really unhappy if she married a non-Iranian. Looks like she is doomed to go back to the Iran . . .

I liked this story a lot. Tami's friends in her English class give her a crash course in American Life and though she is somewhat dismayed she finds herself craving the freedom she sees all around her. Freedom to take her shoes off in public and walk in the soft, dewy grass. Freedom to hold hands in public with a man. Freedom to let her hair blow free in the wind. Freedom to sing and dance in public. Freedom from the constant censure that makes life back home so burdensome. Is was nice reading about life here through the eyes of someone new to it. It was a very enjoyable read.

Iran Awakening

By Shirin Ebadi

Shirin Ebadi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her work for children's and women's rights. She is the first Iranian to receive this award and the first Muslim woman to receive it.
Iran Awakening is about her experiences with the repressive revolutionary religious government that took over Iran after the overthrow of the Shah.
Initially, Ebadi supported the movement to overthrow the Shah because his government was corrupt and repressive and not democratic. She fancied that the new regime would be more democratic than the old. She soon discovered how mistaken she was. As she says, "It took scarcely a month for me to realize that, in fact, I had willingly and enthusiastically participated in my own demise. I was a woman and this revolution's victory demanded my defeat."
Shirin Ebadi before the revolution was a law judge, presiding over a court room. After the revolution, she was only permitted to be a law clerk as a woman was not deemed fit to be a judge. She tries to conform but eventually leaves the court to move into private practice. Her focus becomes abused children and women who have no one to defend them or stand up for their rights in this cruel, male-dominated society that the revolution has created and sustains.
The main problem with the revolution in Iran and in all fundamentalist Islamic societies is their desire to enforce an outdated, centuries-old legal code based on a macho, tribal culture that views women and children as the property of the men in their lives. As Shirin says, "The laws, in short, turned the clock back fourteen hundred years, to the early days of Islam's spread, the days when stoning women for adultery and chopping off the hands of thieves were considered appropriate sentences."
Shirin takes on the cases of abused children and women and of the other victims of the regime. She brings these cases to public notice and comes under the hateful gaze of the government fanatics. She lives knowing that her life is in danger and that she could be killed or locked up at any time, as has happened to so many who have spoken out. Indeed she discovers in government transcript between a government minister and a death squad member that she is reviewing for a legal case that she is on the list of people to be killed: "The next person to be killed is Shirin Ebadi."
After decades of living under a religion-dominated government, Ebadi has come to believe that democracy will only be achieved when religion and government are completely separate. As she says, since the Islamic Republic considers their interpretations of Islam to be divinely inspired and nonnegotiable, how can tolerance and an appreciation of inalienable human rights ever be guaranteed under such a system? The only solution is to separate the two.
Despite the overbearing tactics of the Islamic government in Iran, Ebadi continues to believe that "an interpretation of Islam that is in harmony with equality and democracy is an authentic expression of faith." She also believes that change will come to Iran eventually, even if it takes decades.
At the end of the book she warns the US that using strong arm tactics against Iran will only backfire because it will serve to strengthen the regime's hand against any dissidents and prompt Iranians to stand behind their government out of defensive nationalism.

An interesting look at life inside Iran in the decades following the Islamic Revolution, Ebadi's book is informative, compelling, engrossing and well worth reading.

Review from Kirkus Reviews:   https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/shirin-ebadi/iran-awakening/.