Illegal dating a journey into the private life of iran

The stars will shine with extra brightness in the cold.

They will remind me, as they do every year, of the many candles my grandfather used to light.

She believed that if you have nothing to die for, you have nothing to live for.

By the time every candle was lit, the moment seemed heavy with magic.

Earlier this year, I published my memoir, and fulfilled a promise I made to myself during one dark night in 1982, when I crossed the desert in the company of smugglers.

I had promised myself that I would forever remember the life we had known in Shiraz, the sweetness and the bitterness.

My two boys will watch me, and we will sing traditional songs, and enjoy the latkes and other fried foods, popular in my husband’s tradition.

Outside the bright kitchen, the snow will fall in the quiet night, coating the trees and fence with a soft dusting of snow.

Growing up in Shiraz, Iran, during Hanukkah Baba Esghel, my grandfather, would call us to his house just next door to where I lived with my parents and four siblings.