Hachette Livre

Hachette Reading Group Guides

Welcome to our Reading Group guide for Prisoner of Tehran by Marina Nemat. We invite you to consider and discuss the following questions when reading this book:

  1. ‘The government had ordered women to cover their hair and had issued edicts against music, makeup, paintings of unveiled women, and Western books’. The 1979 Iranian Revolution imposed many restrictions on women. Why did women have to wear a chador and what implications does this ruling have for Marina?
  2. ‘For years, I spent my days at the cottage biking, building sandcastles, swimming’. The Caspian Sea provides an idyllic backdrop to Marina’s carefree summer holidays. Later in the book, when she revisits the place, how has she altered as a person and how have her horrific experiences shaped her hopes and dreams?
  3. ‘I loved my parents and missed them but they had always been very distant to me; we had never had a real conversation about anything.’ Why does Marina, ironically, feel more at home with Ali’s family than she does with her own? In what ways do the two family homes differ and how does religion separate the families and their values?
  4. ‘I stepped outside. It was the strangest feeling to know that I could simply walk home.’ Throughout the book there is a distinction between the inside, imprisonment in Evin, and the outside, freedom. At what point do we realise that this distinction is not as straightforward as it seems?
  5. Prisoner of Tehran is a shocking memoir which some people may find disturbing. Do you think it is important that people like Marina tell their stories however shocking they might be?

Current Reading Group Titles

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  3. The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite by Beatrice Colin
  4. Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker
  5. The Other Hand by Chris Cleave
  6. Testimony by Anita Shreve
  7. Home by Marilynne Robinson
  8. The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti
  9. City of Thieves by David Benioff
  10. Remembering The Bones by Frances Itani
  11. The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton
  12. Lies by Enrique de Heriz
  13. Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaardner
  14. Sorrows of an American by Siri Hustvedt
  15. Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
  16. Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
  17. The Sisterhood by Emily Barr
  18. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
  19. The Rose Labyrinth by Titania Hardie
  20. The Return by Victoria Hislop
  21. A Small Part of History by Peggy Elliott
  22. A Carrion Death by Michael Stanley
  23. Scapegallows by Carol Birch
  24. Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
  25. Prisoner of Tehran by Marina Nemat
  26. Radiance by Shaena Lambert
  27. Rose of Sebastopol by Katharine McMahon
  28. The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell
  29. Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott
  30. The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle
  31. Golden Age by Tahmima Anam
  32. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
  33. The Keep by Jennifer Egan
  34. The Saffron Kitchen by Yasmin Crowther
  35. Pirate’s Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson
  36. The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani
  37. April in Paris by Michael Wallner
  38. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday
  39. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
  40. Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet
  41. Red River by Lalita Tademy
  42. The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox
  43. Rosetta by Barbara Ewing
  44. The Mathematics of Love by Emma Darwin
  45. The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld
  46. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell

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