Behind the Tall Walls: From Palace to Prison Book

Not long after Azar Aryanpour returned home to Iran in September of 1978, following a visit with two of her children in Washington, DC, a state of martial law was declared. Her husband-the former Minister of Health and Welfare under the Shah and an American-trained orthopaedic surgeon who played a role in the real-life events chronicled in Ken Follett's best-selling book On Wings of Eagles-was subsequently and wrongfully imprisoned. Now, nearly two decades later, Azar Aryanpour speaks for the first time in Behind the Tall Walls, an autobiographical retrospective of the tumultuous events that resulted in the overthrow of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and the rise to power of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Part memoir and part historical account, the book presents one upper-class Iranian family, members of a traditional society who became victims of the state and pawns in the transitory world of revolutionary power politics. Most of all, however, Behind the Tall Walls is the intimate story of one woman, caught between clashing armies and conflicting ideologies. Behind the Tall Walls makes an important contribution by filling a major gap in understanding the impact of the Iranian Revolution on the lives of innocent people. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 challenged America's position in the Middle East and stirred unrest throughout the world. Many books have been written about these explosive events: books that detail the political, historical, and social dynamics behind the events and describe the global consequences of this upheaval. However, none of these works have highlighted the human dimension of the "Iranian Crisis" as intimately nor illuminated the facts as vividly as Behind the Tall Walls. A rich and moving tale of war, tragedy and pain, it is also a tale of love, hope and triumph which will stay with the reader long after the last page is turned.