• My Persian Paradox: Memories of an Iranian Girl

  • By: Shabnam Curtis
  • Narrated by: Julie John
  • Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars (4 ratings)

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My Persian Paradox: Memories of an Iranian Girl  By  cover art

My Persian Paradox: Memories of an Iranian Girl

By: Shabnam Curtis
Narrated by: Julie John
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Publisher's summary

On a cold night in 1978, seven-year-old Shabnam Shahmohammad clung to her mother in a Tehran apartment while the sounds of gunshots rang out in the street: The Iranian Revolution was at hand. She and her family survived that night, but as the Islamic fundamentalists took the power over, she grew up watching her father take his beloved books away to burn, his friends be arrested and disappear, and women like her mother grow ever more marginalized. Confused by her father’s communist ideology, her mother’s conservative religious beliefs, and the regime’s oppressive rules, she developed a deep longing to live a different life.

Finding herself being married at 19, she naively dreamed to team up and discover an adventurous life. When she gave birth to a daughter whose future, she realized, mattered more to her than her own, she had to find a way to unlock her little girl’s possibilities. She longed to emigrate, but with Western countries’ embassies mostly absent from Tehran, options for escaping Iran were limited.

My Persian Paradox: Memories Living Under Tyranny and Dreaming of Liberty is a tale of resilience facing oppression and dictatorship along with fighting with narrow traditional and restrictive cultural rules. This memoir is a journey of self-discovery, mother-daughter relationship obstacles, forbidden love, and the universal desire for freedom.

©2019 Shabnam Curtis (P)2020 Shabnam Curtis

What listeners say about My Persian Paradox: Memories of an Iranian Girl

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Tell the rest of the story!

I wanted to know what happened to her and her daughter and when her daughter got to come to the USA. The book would’ve been better if she had gone into what it was like for them to come to the United States. 

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Spectacular listen!!

I have enjoyed listening to a lot of books but this one deserves a great review and recommendation.. it just came out this week January 25, 2021 and it has me glued to the story and reader! What an amazing story of this beautiful woman.

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Poor a cup of tea and tell me your story

Reading this book (listening on Audible in my case) is like sitting down with a friend, taking a cup of tea and listening to her life story. I loved listening to the honest and simple way she gives you very precise historical facts seen by a woman in Iran. A must read, for men and women who should remember that freedom must never be considered as granted.

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Cliffhanger. Awful.

The story has a vague conclusion if any at all. Absolute WASTE OF TIME. Central character a narcissist and example of just how to pawn your child off to grandparents. Awful. Just awful.

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