In February 1984, I was a death row prisoner at Evin Prison in Tehran when Saddam Hussein began his first systematic campaign of bombardment of Iranian cities. At the time, I was alone in an infirmary cell, weak with advanced lymphoma. The ward was particularly quiet. Occasionally, the distant moaning of a prisoner in another cell broke the stabbing silence of the infirmary. The roaring sound of missiles shaking the city further complicated the purgatory of waiting for execution, while fading from my untreated cancer.
Every evening for almost two weeks, I sat on my bed trying to devise a…
