Synopses & Reviews
In February 1979, when Afschineh Latifi was just ten years old, her father, a colonel under the Shah of Iran, was imprisoned by Khomeini's soldiers. Afschineh and her three siblings were left in the care of their mother, who did everything in her power to free her husband from jail, and who struggled to survive in a newly fundamentalist society that was openly hostile to women.
In the torturous weeks and months that followed, Mrs. Latifi and her husband communicated by writing notes to each other on tiny squares of paper, and bribing the guards to pass them back and forth. Mommie joon'e azizam ghorbanat, Colonel Latifi wrote in one of them. My beloved for whom I would give my life. Please take care of the children... Do not worry about me. I am well.
The situation continued to deteriorate, however, both in and out of prison. Mrs. Latifi was verbally abused whenever she showed her uncovered head. Armed guards took to following her and the children everywhere, even to school. Turbaned men arrived in the middle of the night to search the house.
In late May, Colonel Latifi was executed, shot with little fanfare on a prison rooftop, and the story begins. Fearing for the safety of her daughters, Mrs. Latifi made a heartrending decision: She sent Afschineh and her sister, Afsaneh, abroad, knowing it might be years before she embraced them again if ever.
Even After All This Time is an immigrant saga unlike any other. It is the story of a self-made man and the schoolteacher with whom he fell in love, of a family torn apart by war and violence, and of the two little girls who found themselves on their own in America, forced to become strong young women before they even hada childhood.
Review
"This engaging work is part cultural history, part political history, and part memoir....A hard-to-put-down book." Library Journal
Synopsis
In the richly evocative tradition of the bestselling Reading Lolita in Tehran, this is a story of a family that had the courage to dream impossible dreams and to make them come true against impossible odds.
Synopsis
At the age of ten, a young Iranian girl witnesses the horror of her father's execution and escapes the revolution with her sister.
Growing up in Tehran in the 1970s, Afschineh Latifi and her sister and two brothers enjoyed a life of luxury and privilege. Their father, a self–made man, had worked his way up from nothing to become a colonel in the Shah's army, and their mother, a woman of equally modest roots, had made a career for herself as a respected schoolteacher. But in February, 1979, Colonel Latifi was arrested by members of the newly installed Khomeini regime, and publicly pilloried as an "Enemy of God." Some months later, after having been shunted from one prison cell to another, and without benefit of a legitimate trial, Colonel Latifi was summarily executed. Fearing for the safety of her children, Mrs. Latifi made a wrenching decision: to send her daughters, ages ten and eleven, to the west, splitting up the family until they could safely reunite. Out on their own, Afschineh and her sister, Afsaneh, were forced to become strong young women before they'd even had a childhood.
Even After All This Time is a story of hope and heartache, a story of a family torn apart for six harrowing years, and finally coming together to rebuild in America. In the richly evocative tradition of the bestselling Reading Lolita in Tehran, this is a story of a family that had the courage to dream impossible dreams and to make them come true against impossible odds.
About the Author
Afschineh Latifi was born in Tehran in 1969. She is an attorney and lives in New York City. This is her first book.