from the Hardcover "We stormed every classroom, inscribed our slogans on the blackboard .
Only much later did.
As a schoolgirl she watched as friends accused of reading blasphemous books were escorted from class by Islamic Society guards, never to return.
It is with the innocent confusion of youth that Roya describes her discovery of a swastika--"a plus sign gone awry, a dark reptile with four hungry claws"--painted on the wall near her home.
But the Hakakians were also part of the very small Jewish population in Iran who witnessed the iron fist of the Islamic fundamentalists increasingly tightening its grip.
Family gatherings were punctuated by witty, satirical exchanges and spontaneous recitations of poetry.
The daughter of an esteemed poet, she grew up in a household that hummed with intellectual life.
Hakakian was twelve years old in 1979 when the revolution swept through Tehran.
Remarkably, she manages to re-create a time and place dominated by religious fanaticism, violence, and fear with an open heart and often with great humor.
The result is a beautifully written coming-of-age story about one deeply intelligent and perceptive girl\'s attempt to ?nd an authentic voice of her own at a time of cultural closing and repression.
Together as girls we found the courage we had been told was not in us." In Journey from the Land of No Roya Hakakian recalls her childhood and adolescence in preRevolutionary Iran with candor and verve.
We were rebelling because rebelling was all we could do to quell the rage in our teenage veins.
This was 1979, the year that showed us we could make our own destinies. . . .
We were rebelling because we were not evil, we had not sinned, and we knew nothing of the apocalypse.
Too many afternoons had passed in silence, listening to a fanatic\'s diatribes.
Too much fear had tainted our days.
All our lives we had been taught the virtues of behaving, and now we were discovering the importance of misbehaving.
Never had mayhem brought more peace. . .
from the Hardcover "We stormed every classroom, inscribed our slogans on the blackboard
