NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY JON STEWART | Previously published as Then They Came for Me When Maziar Bahari left London in June 2009 to cover Iran’s presidential election, he assured his pregnant fiancée, Paola, that he’d be back in just a few days, a week at most. Little did he know, as he kissed her good-bye, that he would spend the next three months in Iran’s most notorious prison, enduring brutal interrogation sessions at the hands of a man he knew only by his smell: Rosewater. For the Bahari family, wars, coups, and revolutions are not distant concepts but intimate realities they have suffered for generations: Maziar’s father was imprisoned by the shah in the 1950s, and his sister by Ayatollah Khomeini in the 1980s. Alone in his cell at Evin Prison, fearing the worst, Maziar draws strength from his memories of the courage of his father and sister in the face of torture, and hears their voices speaking to him across the years. He dreams of being with Paola in London, and imagines all that she and his rambunctious, resilient eighty-four-year-old mother must be doing to campaign for his release. During the worst of his encounters with Rosewater, he silently repeats the names of his loved ones, calling on their strength and love to protect him and praying he will be released in time for the birth of his first child. A riveting, heart-wrenching memoir, Rosewater offers insight into the past seventy years of regime change in Iran, as well as the future of a country where the democratic impulses of the youth continually clash with a government that becomes more totalitarian with each passing day. An intimate and fascinating account of contemporary Iran, it is also the moving and wonderfully written story of one family’s extraordinary courage in the face of repression. “I really connected to Maziar’s story. It’s a personal story but one with universal appeal about what it means to be free.”—Jon Stewart “An important and elegant book . . . a prison memoir enlarged into a family history.”—The New Republic “Clear and compelling . . . engaging and informative—a gripping tribute to human dedication and a cogent indictment of a corrupt regime.”—Washington Independent Review of Books “[Rosewater] is not only a fascinating, human exploration into Bahari’s personal experience . . . it also provides insight into the shared experience of those affected by repressive governments everywhere.”—Mother Jones “A damning account . . . [Rosewater] turns a lens not only on Iran’s surreal justice system but on the history and culture that helped produce it.”—The Washington Post “[Rosewater] is a unique achievement. It is a story not just of political cruelty (a subject Bahari treats movingly), but also about the two poles of Iranian political culture, bent together in upheaval.”—The Guardian (UK) “A beautifully written account of life in Iran, filled with insights not only into the power struggles and political machinations but into the personal, emotional lives of the people living in that complicated country. Maziar Bahari is a brave man and a wonderful storyteller.”—Fareed Zakaria

本書は、イランの過酷な独房で過ごした日々を描く回顧録ですが、その本質は三代にわたる不屈の魂を辿る家族の叙事詩にあります。尋問官が纏うローズウォーターの香りと共に呼び覚まされるのは、父や姉から受け継いだ抵抗の記憶です。極限状態での内面的な対話は、テキストだからこそ表現し得た孤独と希望の深淵を鮮やかに浮き彫りにしています。 映像版では不条理な尋問の滑稽さと緊迫感が際立ちますが、原作は歴史の縦糸が物語をより重層的にしています。映画の鮮烈な視覚体験と、活字が紡ぐ静かな情熱が相まることで、一人の苦難は普遍的な自由への讃歌へと昇華されます。言葉という武器で専制に立ち向かう、その圧倒的な文学的強度をぜひ肌で感じてください。