The Bathhouse

During the fundamentalist revolution in Iran, a 17-year-old girl is arrested by the Revolutionary Guards. She is not political, but her brother and sister-n-law are, so she is suspect too. She is confined in a former bathhouse with several other women ranging in age from adolescence to elderly, whose mental states vary from the stoic and care-giving to the insane. Based on interviews with several Iranian women who had been imprisoned in such a bathhouse, this novel documents the torment they endured and honors their humanity and courage. Winner of the 2001 Black Heron Press Award for Social Fiction.

Farnoosh Moshiri Farnoosh Moshiri was born into a literary family in Teheran, Iran. Under threat of death from the new regime, she escaped from Iran in 1983. She has lived in the United States since 1987. She graduated from the University of Houston's creative writing program where she won the Barthelme Memorial Fellowship. Crazy Dervish...is her third book.