Death to the Dictator!, Afsaneh Moqadam
Death to the Dictator!, Afsaneh Moqadam
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Death to the Dictator!
A Young Man Casts a Vote in Iran's 2009 Election and Pays a Devastating Price

Author: Afsaneh Moqadam

Narrator: Johnny Heller

Unabridged: 4 hr 40 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/24/2010


Synopsis

Tehran, June 12, 2009. Mohsen Abbaspour, an ordinary young man in his twenties—not particularly political, or ambitious, or worldly—casts the first vote of his life in Iran's tenth presidential election. Fed up with rising unemployment and inflation, he backs the reformist party and its candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Mohsen believes his vote will count.

It will not. Almost the instant the polls close, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will declare himself president by an overwhelming majority. And as the Western world scrambles to make sense of the brazenly fraudulent election, Mohsen, along with his friends and family and neighbors, will experience a sense of utter desolation, and then something else: an increasingly sharper feeling—the beginning of anger. In a matter of weeks, millions of Iranians will flow into the streets, chanting in protest, "Death to the dictator!" Mohsen Abbaspour will be swept up in an uncontrollable and ultimately devastating chain of events.

Like Philip Gourevitch's We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families and Ryszard Kapuscinski's incisive reportage, Death to the Dictator! stuns listeners with its heartbreaking immediacy. Our pseudonymous author was a keen eyewitness in Tehran during the summer of 2009 and beyond. In this brave and true book, we see what we are not supposed to see and learn what we are not supposed to know.

About Afsaneh Moqadam

Afsaneh Moqadam is the pseudonym of the author of Death to the Dictator! It has been adopted to protect the identity of the author, who witnessed and participated in many of the events described in the book.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Brian

A horrific tale told from the perspective of an Iranian youth who dared to hope for political change in his country. Written under a pseudonym for protection, the narrative tells of the events leading up to and immediately following the 2009 Iranian Presidential election, where a reformist candidate......more

Goodreads review by manatee

Although this is a very important book that I think everyone should read, I could not give it a higher rating because the style was stilted, sometimes unclear. The author mangled English idioms in ways that were too distracting to the reader and did not make any sense. Still this book does serve as......more

Was this book written by someone paid by the CIA?......more