Published in 2018
400 pages
Masoumeh (Masih) Alinejad-Ghomi was born in 1976 in Ghomikola, Babol. She is an award-winning Iranian journalist, broadcaster, blogger and founder of the My Stealthy Freedom movement. A 2011 graduate of Oxford Brookes University, Alinejad currently reports and presents a weekly TV segment on VOA, called Tablet, where she mixes hard news and satire. Masih has been published in a variety of newspapers and magazines, including Huffington Post, Time magazine and the Washington Post. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
What is this book about?
A photo on Masih’s Facebook page: a woman standing proudly, face bare, hair blowing in the wind. Her crime: removing her veil, or hijab, which is compulsory for women in Iran. This is the self-portrait that sparked ‘My Stealthy Freedom,’ a social media campaign that went viral. Masih is a world-class journalist who grew up in a traditional village where her mother, a tailor and respected figure in the community, was the exception to the rule in a culture where women reside in their husbands’ shadows.
As a teenager, Masih was arrested for political activism and was surprised to discover she was pregnant while in police custody. When she was released, she married quickly and followed her young husband to Tehran where she was later served divorce papers to the shame and embarrassment of her religiously conservative family. Masih spent nine years struggling to regain custody of her beloved only son and was forced into exile, leaving her homeland and her heritage. Following Donald Trump’s notorious immigration ban, Masih found herself separated from her child, who lives abroad, once again.
