“Even though I wasn’t happy with my situation and that relationship, I was afraid to get out of it and I was beginning to be a slave to my fear.”
The book is the raw chronicle of a physical and psychological violence suffered over time by a girl. Salt on the open wounds of our society that must make us think, because it is not a fictional story, but experienced firsthand by the author. So, two times more painful.
Jasmine Irani had come to Italy from Iran to follow a dream: to study architecture and absorb all that culture and beauty known only through books. A girl who could be our sister, or our best friend, courageous to leave family affections to travel the world and blossom as a woman.
In a few weeks the dream would turn into a nightmare. The dating with a boy, also an Iranian, will mark the beginning of the end. First raped, then beaten, then left to drown in a muddy swamp of lies and moral blackmail.
Despite being a victim, Jasmine instead of reporting to the authorities the evil suffered, she begins to feel wrong, as if the fault of what was immediately hers. A story already heard, from which unfortunately many women are unable to get out, but fortunately this is not the case. The support of unknown friends will give Jasmine the strength to open her eyes.
Strange as it may seem, we believe that reading this book should be made mandatory for all women, in any latitude of the world, to love each other and not to give false justifications to men who use violence. A slap is not love, a punch is not love, the violation of the body is not love.
As for the stylistic figure, writing is very simple, and at times scholastic. A pure observation, which we can justify by not perfect mastery of the author’s Italian language. What we liked least is the editor’s preponderant interference with the text (but maybe we are wrong). There seems to be a diaphragm between the stories told, the words used and the reader, which partially lose the emotionality and the tragedy of the story told, like a punch pulled under water.
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Jasmine Irani, The hug of Mrs. Sun, La vita felice, Milano, 2018
