The book
Winner of the 2001 French Human Rights Prize, French-Iranian author Fariba Hachtroudi's English-language debut explores themes as old as time: the crushing effects of totalitarianism and the infinite power of love.
She was known as "Bait 455," the most famous prisoner in a ruthless theological republic. He was one of the colonels closest to the Supreme Commander. When they meet, years later, far from their country of birth, a strange, equivocal relationship develops between them. Both their shared past of suffering and old romantic passions come rushing back accompanied by recollections of the perverse logic of violence that dominated the dictatorship under which they lived.
The Man Who Snapped His Fingers is a novel of ideas, exploring power and memory by an important female writer from a part of the world where female voices are routinely silenced.
The author
Fariba Hachtroudi
Fariba Hachtroudi decided to leave her home country following the Iranian Revolution in 1979. After relocating to Sri Lanka in 1981, she taught at the University of Colombo for two years and studied Teravada Buddhism. Hachtroudi then pursued journalism and eventually went on to write a full-length non-fiction account about her revisit to Iran after 30 years in exile called The Twelfth Imam's a Woman? In addition to writing, Hachtroudi also leads a foundation that advocates for women's rights, education, and secularism.
Press
- Aug 28 2016
"... leaves us chilled by the tyrannical culture that created this macabre bond. But at the end, it's just as much a tale of the capacity to love.”
— Minneapolis Star Tribune - May 6 2016
"a touching story about the enigmatic human soul"
— World Literature Today - Feb 23 2016
Book of the Month
— A Year of Reading the World - Feb 16 2016
Fariba Hachtroudi speaks on Iran-US relations at Webster University
— The Journal - Feb 16 2016
Starred Review
— Shelf Awareness - Feb 9 2016
Tables Turn on a Torturer
— The Independent