Raised in a family that valued tolerance, Zarah Ghahramani came of age in the wake of the Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic Revolution, which sought to stifle the intellectual freedom so cherished in her household. Daring to flout Iran's oppressive edicts as a university student, she was outspoken and progressive, even allowing her headscarf to slide back and reveal a few inches of her hair. Such "activism" led her to be swept off the streets of Tehran by secret police in 2001, at the age of twenty. Held in the notorious Evin Prison, Zarah endured psychological and physical torture without any promise of when, or if, she would ever be freed. Courageously defiant even in the midst of scathing interrogations, she struggled to retain her idealism. Eventually released after a sham trial, she was forbidden from returning to the halls of learning that had fortified her mind and soul.

My Life as a Traitor blends the atrocities at Evin with precise, moving recollections of the stories from Zarah's youth, ranging from her father's memories of life before the Revolution to ancient legends of her Persian heritage. Expanding the dialogue begun with illuminating accounts such as Reading Lolita in Tehran, My Life as a Traitor is a singular tale of inspiring dissent.