The Evin Prison Bakers' Club: Surviving Iran's Most Notorious Prisons in 16 Recipes

Sepideh Gholian is an Iranian journalist who is also a prisoner in Tehran. There she has been tortured and sexually abused, but her spirit has not been broken. Released in 2023, she was rearrested almost immediately for denouncing the regime’s leader.

The manuscript of this book was smuggled out of her prison, chapter by chapter. Gholian writes about the women she has known in prison, and the whispered bonds they create by imagining themselves baking for themselves, for each other, for those who have died among them. Sometimes they actually get to bake in the prison kitchens.

This is an account of resilience and solidarity, Much of its power comes from Gholian’s frank account of what these women have endured. The sweet things they conjure might seem incongruous without the author’s insight into why each of them matters to the woman they are for.

Very moving, and a reminder of the hard work and sacrifice of resistance.

Paperback.