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When I was approached for the rights to turn my first memoir, Prisoner of Tehran, into a stage play,
my first impulse was to say, "no." Writing about the horrors I had witnessed had been difficult enough, and
I wasn't sure if I could literally watch my life unfold again, even if on stage. But I didn't want to be a
coward. I had decided to bear witness, so it was simply my duty to do it all the way.As I had expected, the process of developing the play has been emotionally exhausting, but there have also
been many aspects to it that I had never anticipated. As Maja Ardal passionately and masterfully wrote
the script, a process that I was very much involved with, and as we workshopped it with three talented
actors, two of whom are Iranian-Canadian, I realized that the story that came alive in front of my eyes was
not only mine, but it belonged not only to all the victims of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but to everyone it touched. It is through art that the human experience of history can live on and be remembered.May we forgive, but never forget, and may we all work toward a world free from violence, intolerance, and injustice.
~ Marina Nemat
