Iran is–again–on the brink. Young people, who have driven much of the political activism over many generations, are in the streets, protesting the regime and invoking the name of Mahsa Amini, the young woman who died in police custody in 2022. Is this the end of tyranny and repression? Or a brief interval before–again–hundreds or thousands of protestors are swept into custody? Iran has some notorious prisons, including Evin.
The U.S. president is threatening to intervene, and given that the U.S. government has just swooped in and grabbed the president of Venezuela, this doesn’t seem like an empty threat. Iran claims the U.S. wants their resources; the U.S. promises to protect protestors. Perhaps it would be a good moment for the U.S.to reconsider their increasingly draconian asylum policies.
Everything I know about Iran is from books and friends. Persepolis, of course. But also The Prisoner of Tehran, Iranian-Canadian writer Marina Nemat’s harrowing memoir of her arrest, age 16, and imprisonment.
Add to these Ausma Zehanat Khan’s Among the Ruins, which I just finished. As with some of her other fiction, this was a crime novel that required both careful attention and some breaks from the horror. The depictions of torture in detention are horrifying.
Zehanat Khan’s purpose, however, is a serious one, and the violence in this novel is not at all gratuitous. It’s just very difficult to read.
After an overwhelming case, Esa Khattak has travelled to Iran as a tourist. He’s approached by a mysterious woman, who claims to have Canadian government connections. She wants his help looking into the recent death of an Iranian-Canadian filmmaker; the woman’s body showed signs of torture and rape and her son in Canada is demanding justice.
Esa is initially reluctant. He’s still recovering from his own trauma, and–as he notes several times throughout the novel–he has no official standing in Iran.
But as he does begin to investigate, he connects with a group of young people who are risking their lives to resist the government.
Back in Canada, Rachel Getty, Esa’s partner, is tasked with learning what she can find out about the filmmaker’s purpose in spending time in Iran. With the assistance of Esa’s friend Nathan, a writer, and an ambitious young Toronto journalist, Rachel uncovers a complicated connection between a Royal Ontario Museum curator and the Iranian regime.
This is a compelling book that offers a measured approach to Iran. Esa expresses appreciation for the culture, art, and religion, which are near to his own family’s traditions. But Zehanat Khan also draws on the real-life story of the torture and murder of Iranian-Canadian photo-journalist Zahra Kazemi, whose son sought justice through the Canadian courts. It’s a heartbreaking case, and a fascinating exploration of the limits of international justice. The dissent by Justice Rosalie Abella is worth reading. The court agreed that civil law damages couldn’t be sought in Canada for misconduct that took place in Iran, but Abella J. provided a nuanced and sensitive analysis of state immunity when it comes to the torture during state detention of a Canadian citizen.
The Landscape of Canadian Women's Crime Fiction 