The Bathhouse

With intense emotion and great literary skill, Farnoosh Moshiri has written one of the most moving novels to come out in years. The story begins with the arrest of a seventeen-year-old girl in the early days of the fundamentalist revolution in Iran. Imprisoned because of her brother's involvement with leftist politics, she is placed in a makeshift jail, a former bathhouse, in which other women are held captive. With a gripping narrative, Moshiri gives voice to these prisoners, exploring their torment and struggle, but also their courage and humanity, in the face of tyrants.It's hard to stop reading. . . . Horrible as it is, you don't want to turn away from the girl's first-person nightmare. The language in The Bathhouse is simple, the dialogue taut, the tension immediate.—Houston Chronicle

"[A] gut-wrenching, eye-opening novel. The Bathhouse shows what happens when ideology runs amok. It honors the humanity and sacrifice of the victims."—Tacoma News Tribune