Addressing Sunday night’s Booker prize ceremony, the translator jailed in Iran for almost six years described how illicit books sustained her sense of freedom
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I spent nine months in solitary confinement with very little access to anything. Being claustrophobic, solitary was a horrific experience. After five months my family could bring me books. When the guard opened the door and handed over the books to me, I felt liberated; I could read books, they could take me to another world, and that could transform my life.
Dr Thorne by Anthony Trollope was the first book I read. The fact that a story written in the 19th century can speak to you across time and space, throwing you into another world hundreds of years later, is phenomenal. This story of power, money and politics was so captivating that while reading it, I did not take any notice of the crying and banging on the door going on in other cells.
